Toyota Kirloskar Motor's (TKM) product lineup starts with the Toyota Etios Liva hatchback, which is positioned in the B-segment hatchback market. According to Vikram Kirloskar, the company's vice-chairman, Toyota will not enter a segment below the Liva, as it plans to focus only on larger cars.
The segments below the Liva, which consists of cars like the Hyundai i10, Maruti Wagon R, Alto, etc., account for 50 percent of the cars sold in the country. TKM however, has no interest to enter this voluminous segment, as their game plan has changed.
Mr. Kirloskar said that the mass-market segment is "not for Toyota", and that the company will instead focus on larger cars like the Corolla and Innova. He added that TKM was unable to break the cost barrier of the small car segment. By June this year, TKM would have launched the next generation Corolla, and the Cross Etios variant.
Bookings for both these cars have commenced, and dealerships have also started displaying these vehicles. According to Mr. Kirloskar, TKM already has order backlogs for these models.
Apart from these cars, Mr. Kirloskar announced that a lot of new models will be launched. Understandably, these cars will be larger than the Liva/Etios sedan.
[Source - LiveMint]
