These days, Toyota officials and workers are very busy in their bid to overtake GM as the largest auto maker in the world. They are perhaps too busy to notice that Toyota is missing something in the emerging Indian auto market. In the next 4 years, the size of Indian auto market is expected to become double (from one million to two million) and all the major local and foreign automakers except Toyota are these days talking of setting up manufacturing plants in India, turning India into an exporting hub for South Asia and finally increasing sale.
Toyota bosses have not yet realized the fact that Indian market is ideal for cheap compact (small) cars as Toyota is yet to offer anything in this category. Therefore, while (almost) every auto company managed to increase their sale in India, Toyota actually, saw its sale dropped by 15% to 41,000 units in 2005. This year, Toyota is expecting a healthy increase in its sale to around 55,000 units. However, Toyota does not have any plan to set up a manufacturing plant in India in near future and thus exporting cars from India is even out of question. I guess more than setting up a manufacturing plant in India, Toyota needs to introduce a budget car.
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