Toyota and Daihatsu to set up joint emerging markets company

Toyota Motor has stated it will establish a joint internal company with Daihatsu to develop and market compact automobiles in emerging industries, as Toyota intends to broaden market share in other Asian countries.

The Japanese car manufacturer plans to develop the brand-new unit in January, it stated in a statement, adding that its operations would be led by compact automaker Daihatsu, a Toyota group company which was taken in by the automaker earlier this year.

Daihatsu will be accountable for development, procurement and production preparations for compact automobiles while the two business will utilize existing production sites to manufacture the compact cars.

Toyota stated the companies were thinking about possible markets including Vietnam, India and Pakistan.

“With the establishment of the internal company, Toyota plans to learn the extremely fundamentals of Daihatsu’s competitiveness and change the way we work,” Toyota Executive Vice President Shigeki Terashi stated in a declaration.

The companies plan to establish Daihatsu into a global brand name as they focus on growing markets for entry-level compact vehicles, which are lessening and energy effective because of environmental and traffic issues.

Daihatsu holds about a 16 percent market share of the passenger auto market in Indonesia, where it produces the Ayla and other cars in a joint venture with Astra International. In Malaysia, it runs a joint venture which has a market share of about 32.5 percent.