Toyota’s Rising Car Exports Point to Hub Ambitions


By Tito Summa Siahaan on 10:14 pm August 20, 2013.
Category Business, Corporate News
Tags: Astra Indonesia, Indonesia automotive industry, Toyota Motor


A worker conducts final checks on the wheels of a Toyota car before handing it over to a customer at the Toyota Astra showroom in Jakarta, in this June 7, 2010 file photo. (Reuters Photo/Supri)


Car exports by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indonesia rose 8 percent in the first half, highlighting the growing importance of the Southeast Asian nation as an important production base for the Japanese carmaker’s manufacturing capability.

Shipments of completely built cars totaled 61,225 units, or about 60 percent of the total of Indonesia’s car exports, Toyota said in a statement on Tuesday.

The sport utility vehicle, Fortuner, was the biggest export for Toyota in the January-June period.

That accounted for 37 percent of total volume, or 22,435 units. The Avanza Model was second, with 21,893 units.

Shipments of Toyota cars by volume in the first half of 2012 was 56,258 units.

Total car exports from Indonesia was 84,304 units in the January-June period, down 3 percent from the same six-month period last year, according to data from the Association of Indonesian Automotive Industries (Gaikindo).

In addition, Toyota exported 18,000 units of completely knock-down vehicles in the first six months.

Domestic car sales in June reached 601,952 units in the first six months, up from 535,261 units a year earlier. Toyota is the market leader in Indonesia’s automotive industry, commanding a 37 percent market share.

Toyota, through its joint venture with Astra International, aims to make Indonesia an automotive hub and plans to build a new car engine plant in Karawang, West Java, through an investment of 23 billion yen ($234 million).

The new plant, scheduled to begin operations in 2016, will have an annual production capacity of 216,000 engines.

Several Japanese carmakers have recently announced their intention to boost their presence in Indonesia as stagnant growth in their home country sent them looking for opportunities overseas.

Massive flooding in Thailand, the home of Southeast Asia’s largest automotive industry, in 2011 had also prompted carmakers to consider Indonesia as a possible base for their export operations.

Suzuki Motor announced last month its plan to invest 60 billion yen to build a new passenger car plant in Indonesia. Suzuki aims to manufacture small cars in Indonesia after the launch of the government’s Low Cost Green Car (LCGC) program, an initiative to have cheap and energy efficient vehicles.

Honda Prospect Motor, the license holder of Honda Motor in Indonesia, is building a $329 million factory in Karawang, West Java to support its automobile sales in Asia and Oceania. The new factory will be online next year and is expected to boost annual production capacity of Honda Prospect to 200,000 units from 70,000.

A study by Information Handling Services, an automotive industry tracker, estimates that annual car production in Indonesia is set to reach 2.7 million units by 2020 from 1.2 million units now.

The Jakarta Globe