Toyota predicts one million market

Market leader Toyota predicts that Australia will eclipse the one million mark for the fourth time in five years – but stopped short of saying it would overtake the previous record of 1,049,000 sales set in 2007.

Renewed consumer confidence and an oversupply of new models – as Toyota attempts to make up for lost sales following the interruption to supply after the Japanese tsunami in March – will drive the sales spurt.

“We’re firmly predicting a one million market for Australia,” said Toyota Australia executive director sales and marketing, Dave Buttner, at the unveiling of the new Camry in Melbourne yesterday.

“In August and September our arrivals from both Japan and Thailand will exceed our arrivals [in those months] last year. The plants are back producing volume they’re doing everything they can to try and recover what they lost. We’re looking forward to getting back to our regular volumes.”

He said although consumer confidence had dipped in recent months, it was likely to bounce back before the end of the year.

“When you look at what transpired in both the Australian and global economies in the early part of August, we saw a significant drop in the share market, consumer confidence declined [and] there had been talk about interest rates rising,” he said.

“All of a sudden now we’re finding there’s potential for interest rates to come down. And that has to have some benefit to consumer confidence, particular the private consumer, in the balance of the year.”

He said Toyota would start to show signs of recovery when August sales figures are released. The car maker’s sales are down by 21.3 per cent to July but, Buttner said: “we expect August to be about 3 per cent above last year”.

He said talk of a weak new-car market was misguided because the 5.9 per cent year-to-date decline was largely influenced by Toyota’s dramatic sales slump.

“We’re 22 per cent share of the market, on average, and when that volume’s not there it has to impact the overall market,” he said. “While the market is down we expect it to recover and still do 1 million vehicles this year.”

He said some manufacturers will sell more cars in the second half of the year than the first.

“The [seasonally adjusted sales rate] will have to grow in the next few months. I can’t see anything stopping it at the moment.

“The talk of interest rates going down has to buoy private consumer confidence. With the share market recovery, self-funded retirees won’t panic as much as when they saw 20 per cent wiped off the value of their retirement going back a few weeks ago. So we’re confident it’s going to be a strong market.”

He said Toyota would be even stronger in 2012 given the arrival of three new models by the end of this year – Yaris, Hilux and Camry – and a number of new models next year.

“Next year we have a significant number of new models, so it’s a pretty exciting time, we’re getting back to those 2007 levels when we launched seven new-generation cars.”

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