Toyota sales marginally higher in fiscal 2005

Toyota has sold some 500 vehicles more during the year to March 2005 as compared to the previous year. This is "despite the Qualis not being available in the market for the last two months," a company release said.

However, while sales for March jumped 47 per cent for the executive segment car Corolla, sales for the full year increased only 4 per cent. Sales of the luxury segment car, Camry, dipped by over a fifth for the full year.

Toyota, through its Bangalore-headquartered joint venture with the Kirloskar Group, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) Private Ltd, sold some 43,077 vehicles during fiscal 2005.

This included sales of 5,518 vehicles in March 2005, up 25 per cent year-on-year and the "highest ever sale recorded by TKM" to date, the release said.

March sales include Corolla, an executive segment car (in India), sales of which increased 47 per cent year on year to 1,332 units and 136 units of a luxury car, Camry, and sales of a landcruiser, Prado, introduced in India in November 2004.

March sales of Camry were down 14.5 per cent year on year. In March 2004, TKM had sold 159 Camrys, up 33 per cent over March 2003.

For fiscal 2005, Corolla sold 9,942 units, up 4 per cent over the previous year. Camry sales were down for the full year too from 1,117 during 2003-04 to 872 in 2004-05, a dip of 22 per cent.

Introduced towards the end of February this year, Innova, a multi-purpose vehicle with three rows of seats sold 4,011 units during March, contributing significantly to TKM's total sales for the year. The Innova "has notched up over 12,000 bookings," the release said.

The bulk of the sales, however, was still from the Qualis, an entry-level MPV that sold some 36,698 units between January and December 2004 and was pulled from the market over two months ago.