Toyota considering Lexus for India

Is Toyota planning to bring its luxury brand Lexus in India? If report from TOI is to be believed, then this might be true. According to a report published in the national daily, Naomi Ishii, MD of Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM), said that its his 'dream to bring Lexus to India.'

"We see a lot of opportunity in India now. Given that the three German brands are doing well, I feel we need Lexus here." Ishii said. “they wanted to be different from the German players in the segment,” he added.

Despite of the constant decline in sales, luxury cars is the only segment on growth in India, with a good no. of 30,000 to 40,000 cars annually. And the major chunk of these numbers comes from a same origin- Germany. While the trio (BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi) are already doing well in this segment, now, the Japanese auto major Toyota believes that the market is ripe for its luxury brand Lexus.

With the maximum sales coming from the Etios series (Liva and sedan), currently, the Toyota accounts for about 4 to 5 percent of market share in the passenger vehicle segment. But Mr. Ishii stated, “The company isn't happy with the overall sales volumes,” and is now planning to push its footprint to the tier-2 & 3 non-metro cities, where they actually lack the presence in the today's scenario. Last month, the company witnessed a good 6 percent growth as it retailed 13,230 units. It exported 1,397 units of Etios series and 11,833 were sold in the domestic market.

Furthermore, the company recently extended its Etios family with the launch of Etios Cross- a beefed-up version of the Liva hatchback. Priced at INR 5.76 lakhs, the car comes in four variants and three engine options. The 1.2-litre petrol engine pumps out 79 bhp of power at 5600 rpm and 104 Nm of torque at 3100 rpm, and the 1.5-litre petrol unit making is rated at 89 bhp at 5600 rpm and 132 Nm at 3000 rpm of peak torque. While the diesel variants are powered by a 1.4-litre diesel engine making 67 bhp of maximum power at 3800 rpm and 170 Nm of torque at 1800-2400 rpm.