[TusharK]

Toyota has decided to defer its plan to introduce Daihatsu in India. Toyota is instead looking to leverage their proposed partnership with Suzuki to foray into the small car segment.



Daihatsu will be focusing on the South-East Asian market for now. The Chairman of Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Hiroyuki Fukui said, "Daihatsu is very busy with future plans of Indonesia and Malaysia. As for India, it may be Suzuki, as you are aware, we are in talks. Nothing is finalized yet." Fukui - also the CEO of Asia, Middle East and North Africa region - said that the company will focus on markets where they have a significant market share.

Meanwhile, the company is in talks with Suzuki for the small car segment in India. Fukui also said, "Suzuki is the master of small cars and we are the students. There is so much we can learn from them. I'm not part of the discussion, but if the partnership fructifies, there is much to gain from Suzuki."

Maruti Suzuki is India's biggest car maker by volume. To a certain extent, the introduction of Daihatsu would have posed a threat to local brands including Maruti Suzuki. Toyota, which currently has a market share of 4-5% is looking to bring new cars to India in order to build volumes.

Source: Economic Times

Link to Team-BHP News

[GTO]

Building a fresh new brand from the ground up is an arduous task. I don't know if the slowcoach management of Toyota India could handle that. Frankly, there is a lot of room for brand Toyota itself to grow in the sub-10 lakh segment. All they need to do is bring the right hatchbacks & sedans from their global portfolio, and a compact SUV too. Toyota today sells only 15+ lakh cars in India (Altis, Innova, Fortuner) and has lots of potential for volume.

But no more outdated cars please. Pull the plug on the Etios & Liva ASAP.

Originally Posted by TusharK

Meanwhile, the company is in talks with Suzuki for the small car segment in India. Fukui also said, "Suzuki is the master of small cars and we are the students. There is so much we can learn from them. I'm not part of the discussion, but if the partnership fructifies, there is much to gain from Suzuki."

Toyota might be tempted to simply buy out Suzuki for its massive Indian operations, but the latter won't be as willing. Maruti is on such a roll. Still, if there's one thing we've learned in the auto industry, it's never say never.

[1100D]

Nothing is stopping Toyota from rebadging Daihatsus as Toyota. Daihatsu has a more appropriate model range that can cater to India. Renault did the same with Dacia.

[greenhorn]

I think Toyota's plan was to use daihatsu to go downmarket without diluting its brand, something like a reverse nexa.Toyota was one of the pioneers for this strategy ( Toyota has 4 such channels in Japan!), The benefit of this is to increase sales volume and penetration, while still avoiding competition among dealers -

My guess is, they will utilize maruti for production engineering, localization, and maybe even manufacturing ?

[Durango Dude]

Toyota and Suzuki would make strange bed fellows, at least, in India. Suzuki is fast and ever changing according to what the customer wants, whereas Toyota is total anti thesis that relies on it's brand equity and takes it own sweet time and is never interested in anything below the ₹ 30L category and avidly greedy for profit of late. This partnership is prone to falter and fall apart unless Toyota is only interested in gobbling up Suzuki Japan and their Indian Subsidiary. The present Toyota Kirloskar Management has to see beyond the Crysta/Fortuner brigade and be more proactive; what's preventing them from getting the Vios, Yaris, etc I'd even rate the German's as more proactive to demand than Toyota. Basically Toyota hasn't understood the Indian psyche or may be it's not interested.

[mail4ajo]

Why doesnt Toyota do more with the existing golden goose they have? We all know the story of Datsun helping to boost Nissan sales, maybe Toyota wants to replicate that.

Building a brand is so difficult especially in India. Toyota has a great brand recall, they should build on it with upgraded models and also in under served segments like the compact SUV