[TusharK]

Toyota has achieved the sales milestone of 20 lakh wholesale units in India. The 20,00,000th Toyota, a Glanza, was delivered in April 2022 by Nippon Toyota at Trichur, Kerala.



The Glanza is a re-badged Maruti Baleno, which was introduced as part of a partnership with India's largest carmaker. Toyota also offers the Urban Cruiser, which is based on the Maruti Vitara Brezza.

That being said, the Innova and Fortuner are the brand's most popular models. The Legender sits at the top of the Fortuner line-up.

In the premium segment, Toyota offers the Camry Hybrid and the Vellfire MPV. While the Camry has been on sale in India since 2013, the latter was launched in February 2020.

Link to Team-BHP News

[enj0y_ride]

I feel Toyota should stop seeing India through MSIL's eyes. They should launch products that differentiate them like Qualis. The moment they forget their core, they might follow Ford's route. Even VW for that matter is ignoring what they stood for ( developing cheaper platforms for India which deviates from their DNA ).

[aquavivarium]

Toyota has disappointed, only high end cars or cheap imitations.
Koreans are dedicated to India and it shows in sales.

[Brumby]

20 lakh sales of Toyota cars in India actually means 20 lakh cars with Toyota badges.

Probably in their records this milestone is still thousands of cars away.

[GTO]

Congrats to Toyota! But an overwhelming majority of these sales will be its UVs. As enj0y_ride & aquavivarium posted, I am also disappointed with Toyota's lackadaisical attitude towards India. Its painful to see such amazing cars in their global portfolio that could do well in India, but they're content with selling cheap Marutis, utility vehicles and the Camry.

I also wish Toyota had mass-marketed hybrids. EVs going mainstream is a decade or two away, but well-priced hybrids could be an overnight gamechanger in India, especially with the death of diesel in <15-lakh cars. Imagine a hatchback that gives you 25 kmpl in the city? A missed opportunity, Toyota.

[MMV]

Congrats to Toyota and as an owner of multiple models (across the family) I wish them to stay committed to Indian market. Also, as fellow BHPians mentioned they should launch more genuine 'Toyota' cars and not economical / profitable rebadged versions.


A related point which needs to be mentioned here is how the service network of Toyota (for which it is known for) is under pressure due to huge volumes they have to cater to. There are few reasons to the same, listing the same down along with background.

Recently experienced huge delays in TAT from a service centre (in Mumbai) on a pre-booked service. My vehicle (2010 Corolla VL AT) was scheduled for annual service on a Saturday, pick up was done on time (a paid service off late) and vehicle reached service centre on time. It took couple of hours (and follow up) for Service Advisor to call me, acknowledging the vehicle is being attended to. Later by afternoon (say 2pm) they called up suggesting some more work (mainly checking up the status of shock absorbers) to which I agreed to considering the need. Around late evening, when I called to check on delivery of vehicle post service, I was informed that certain work could not be attended to today and can only be done on Monday (as on Sundays the service centre only does basic stuff like cleaning etc). It was an inconvenience as these days I drive to office but decided it’s better to get it done right away (as I plan to keep this car for more time). Later I gave feedback to dealer, Toyota (they call up as a routine) and also emailed on VOC. They responded and I highlighted the TAT issue. On the shock absorber, they suggested replacement of rear shock absorbers (front was optional), battery was cleared for another year of use.

Later (few weeks later) I had to do a follow up visit for shock absorber replacement (had to be ordered first). Unfortunately, prior to that I had faced a battery issue (due to an over enthusiastic parking assistant near office, whom I used to give keys to move the vehicle around due to parking constraints, the battery got drained) As its an automatic, did not want to take chances on battery and replaced it (did soon with an FNG and later went to Toyota to do shock absorber replacement, rear only).

This time I went in person and requested them to return the vehicle on same day, which they did but I was regularly following up. I could see the huge queue of vehicle for servicing and could very well understand the volume and time pressure they were under.

Subsequently decided to replace front shock absorbers too (as ride quality was still bit poor despite replacement of front shock absorbers. The decision again was driven by the fact that the car otherwise has been trouble free and I intend to retain it (maybe as a beater car for years to come).

This time around I booked service with a different service centre (Mumbai has 4/5) but the situation there was similar. Since I could pre-empt possibility of a delay, I followed up regularly to ensure same day delivery. Again, this time there an another unpleasant surprise, when I saw the car, at first sight I noticed the hanging tail /exhaust pipe (the connection from chassis was broken and was hanging loose but not fallen down fully). My immediate step was to call up the Service Advisor (SA), who immediately agreed to rectify it next day and did so, fortunately my outstation family trip was a day after. I had also personally visited this time around to ensure no further mess up.


I had also asked SA to check the video footage at service centre to notice the time of tail pipe damage, which eventually was estimated to have happened when the vehicle was delivered back. It was quite shocking as for anyone to cause damage to tail pipe in city roads, say by getting rear portion into a large pothole or speed breaker hitting rear portion... (this too I feel are rare possibilities, any other possibilities?). Anyways, I did not pursue the tail pipe damage much as they had welded it back and did not want a contract driver (who might have been at fault) to suffer.


Just noticed that the background / anecdote was long, hope it was not soo long . Now coming back to the original observations on Turn Around Time (TAT) and Toyota Service Centres.

The following are the main reasons which I feel has contributed to the current woes faced by Toyota Consumers and increased TAT (and dissatisfaction) at Toyota Service Centres

1) Toyota Vehicles are mile munchers: Though the number of vehicles on road may be less, the actual Kms covered by Toyota passenger vehicles will be substantially more. Naturally this will require regular servicing as well as more detailed servicing

2) Toyota owners to regularly service at Authorised stations: In general they prefer taking the vehicle to authorised service station than FNG

3) Toyota Vehicles do remain on road for long: This results in more vehicles for servicing at any point in time.

4) Toyota has not expanded dealership / service centre network much: Possibly due to lower sales (than they anticipated ) due to few failed launches and lack of new products (original Toyota made) slated for India market

These are few points I could think through, request fellow BHPians to share their anecdotes / observations.

Best,

[sumeethaldankar]

They could have achieved this milestone much earlier if they have not been lazy as far as India is concerned. Toyota philosophy in India has been so far "Money maximum machine minimum". Two hit wonder and rebadged cars is all that Toyota India is.

They have failed to understand the pulse of the market or just don't care. Hope they regroup and have better products for us in the future. In a market which is sensitive to fuel prices where a company's tagline is/was "kitna deti hai" they failed to get hybrid models. Let's see what Toyota can do for India in the future.

[anjan_c2007]

Twenty lakhs in twenty two years though an achievement, there are gaps which the joint venture did not address.

Toyota Kirloskar Motors Pvt Ltd (TKMPL) was founded in 1997 as a JV with the Kirloskar Group (89% Toyota and 11% Kirloskar Group partnership). It launched the Qualis in 2000 and the Corolla in 2003. TKMPL did very well with their marketing skills till they decided to discontinue the best selling Qualis around 2006. That was a short sighted decision, but the mighty Innova very luckily filled the uncalled for vacuum and worked as a miracle vehicle, soon becoming TKMPL 's bread and butter earner. The Camry has been around for a long time but reports only two to three digit sales figures per annum and has an insignificant presence here, though it's always amongst the Top Ten best selling sedans in the US market.

Next, the Corolla and its subsequent model Corolla Altis were never properly marketed with reliability as their strong point. A diesel variant on offer with the petrol since 2003 with proper marketing would have made Corolla the market leader in its D-1 segment. They had to sadly discontinue the Corolla Altis by 2020.

The Etios and Etios Liva, both with the Toyota reliability were again under performers due to lack of marketing and aggressive sales promotion. The Toyota Yaris saw a high pitch launch but came and disappeared faster than a hurricane from showrooms - "whom the God's love die young" is an apt quote as epitaph for the Yaris in India.

The Fortuner as the darling in its segment too helped TKMPL stay afloat. The Innova and Fortuner were jointly earning the company all its profits.

Next they rebadged two existing Maruti models as the Glanza and Urban Cruiser and put them in the market. The ultimate results of this newfound love between Maruti and Toyota are yet to be fully seen and maybe time will tell whether this JV propped up the sales of TKMPL.

The marketing gaps if properly addressed by TKMPL, especially for their very reliable and long lasting, now rested sedans would be game changers and maybe we would be discussing about 50 lakh sales here in this thread, by the automaker after 22 years of production.