TOKYO: Toyota Motor Corp., facing capacity constraints in North America, may boost exports from Japan for the first time in three years to meet its global sales target.
Weak sales in resource-rich and emerging countries have made it “very difficult” to meet Toyota’s 2015 target, Managing Officer Yoichi Miyazaki said last month, according to a newsletter by the company’s labor union. Toyota must make up for the shortfall by boosting sales in developed markets, he said, asking for the cooperation of the company’s Japanese workers in handling the increased workload.
“Whenever there is a letter from the management to labor, the outlook is always ultra conservative,” Koji Endo, an auto analyst at Advanced Research Japan, said by phone. “Compared to the very conservative numbers that management has been giving to the union, the actual number is probably going to be better.”
Toyota declined as much as 1.2 percent to 8,427 yen, and traded at 8,438 yen at the 11:30 a.m. midday break in Tokyo. Japan’s benchmark Topix index was down 0.7 percent.
While Miyazaki didn’t identify specific countries in the letter, Toyota last month forecast stronger sales in North America will be tempered by weaker demand from Russia and the Middle East, due to plunging oil prices. Kayo Doi, a Toyota spokeswoman, confirmed the contents of the newsletter, issued June 1, and declined to comment further.
