BANGKOK, Jan. 21 (Kyodo) — The Thai subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corp. announced Monday that Thai automotive industry sales in 2012 totaled a record 1.43 million vehicles, up 80 percent from the previous year.
The company said it expects industry sales to drop 16 percent to 1.2 million vehicles in 2013.
Kyoichi Tanada, president of Toyota Motor Thailand Co., told a news conference that besides expanding domestic demand, the surge in sales in 2012 was due to a Thai government subsidy for first-time car buyers and a backlog of orders stemming from massive flooding in 2011.
Toyota said it targets sales of around 500,000 units in Thailand in 2013, down 3 percent from 2012.
Toyota is expected to boost its production capacity from 220,000 units per year to 300,000 units per year once a new plant in eastern Thailand comes online in the third quarter of this year.
