Toyota Motors exports $480M worth of auto parts as of June

Automotive industry leader Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. exported $480 million worth of automotive parts in the first half of the year, down by 2 percent from the $490 million it posted a year ago.

TMP vice president Rommel Gutierrez said in an interview Tuesday that the decline in exports can be attributed to the phaseout of parts for the Vios and Corolla, given the “full model change” for these two models.

With these model changes, however, exports are expected to rebound in the second semester, according to Gutierrez.

This is expected to allow the Toyota Group, which operates out of Sta. Rosa, Laguna, to achieve its $1-billion export target for 2013.

The parts being exported by TMP, which are manufactured by Toyota Autoparts Philippines Inc. (TAP), include transmissions, constant velocity joints, wiring harnesses, meter assemblies and switches.

On the domestic front, TMP remains the biggest automotive firm with a hefty market share of 40 percent.

It recently raised its vehicle sales target this year to more than 75,000 units on the back of a booming Philippine market and the expected robust performance of its All New Vios.

This target is 15 percent more than TMP’s total vehicle sales of 65,396 units last year, and slightly higher than the 70,000 unit sales initially projected by the company.

TMP president Michinobu Sugata earlier explained that the company had to “upgrade” or push for higher sales to protect its market share, as the local industry expects higher sales of 210,000 units for 2013.

“We will continue with our investments as long as we can find the potential for growth. We will keep on investing in people, technology and local production,” Sugata had said.

The magnitude of these investments, however, will depend on government support in terms of the measures and policies that will be put in place under the automotive manufacturing roadmap being formulated by the Board of Investments, an attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry.

The roadmap, which is expected to contain a set of fiscal, volume-based incentives that would revive and further boost the local automotive manufacturing sector, is expected to put the Philippines on the auto manufacturing map in Southeast Asia.

Once that roadmap is issued, TMP is expected to then sit down with its counterparts in Japan and Singapore to talk about new investors in the export of car parts.