Toyota bullish on locally assembled vehicles

Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. (TMP) said sales of its locally made vehicles have been revving up amid a continued expansion of its middle class market.

Ty family-led GT Capital Holdings Inc., which has a 51-percent stake in TMP, meanwhile, sees the automotive firm contributing a bigger chunk of the conglomerate’s profit in the near-term, even as manufacturing expansion plans remain in the back burner due to the delays in the government’s release of the automotive roadmap.

Citing data from Toyota Financial Services Philippines Corp. (TFSPH), TMP said buyers whose monthly income range between P20,000 and P100,000 now account for close to two-thirds or 63.5 percent of their financing and leasing transactions in 2013.

The share of middle-income customers in TFSPH’s customer base has been increasing from 54.4 percent in 2012 and 28.9 percent in 2011.

According to TMP, almost half of these customers aged 30-50 years are employed professionals while about three-fifths are self-employed or business owners. Another significant group, overseas Filipino workers, represents 10 percent.

TMP said the most popular Toyota vehicles for the middle market are the Vios sedan and the Innova utility vehicle—both produced in the company’s plant in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

In January to July this year, combined sales of the Vios and Innova surged by 33 percent year-on-year to 24,330 units from 18,272 units.

Full-year turnover for both vehicles reached 34,869 units in 2013, a 17-percent jump from 29,886 units in 2012.

GT Capital senior vice president and chief financial officer Francisco H. Suarez Jr. told reporters last week that while TMP wants to further jack up its production to tap this growing domestic vehicle market, they are beset by the lack of incentives.

“Japanese assemblers, not only TMP, await the release of the automotive roadmap. The Board of Investments had said that the roadmap would be part of the 2014 Investment Priorities Plan but the IPP has also yet to be issued,” Suarez said.

In a presentation, GT Capital president Carmelo Maria L. Bautista noted that TMP is becoming an important growth driver of the conglomerate, as it increased its share of the profit to 29.1 percent in the first half of 2014 from 16.4 percent in the same six-month period of last year.