Toyota To Cut Sedan Lineup At Some Dealer Chains

TOKYO April 10, 2003; Dow Jones reported that Toyota Motor Corp. will deviate from its long-standing marketing strategy of having showrooms carry an extensive lineup of passenger sedans through several groups of Toyota-affiliated dealership chains, Kyodo News reported Friday.

Japan's top automaker will instead have the dealerships put greater emphasis on selling increasingly popular compact cars and minivans such as the Vitz and Alphard, Kyodo quotes Toyota officials as saying.

As the first step of the new strategy, Toyota will cut the lineup of sedans at a planned new dealership chain called a "new Netz" to be created through next spring's amalgamation of the existing "Vista" and "Netz Toyota" dealership chains, the officials said.

Toyota envisages cutting the model lineup eventually to 10 from the current 25 models, they said.

The automaker has devised the strategy because middle-aged people, who have long been the core of its customers, have been increasingly opting for non-sedan vehicle models, they said.

Toyota envisions marshaling its financial and developmental resources to put greater emphasis on marketing compact cars and minivans, two vehicle segments that have become more popular among Japanese, they said.

Toyota is considering eliminating the Verossa midsize sports sedan and the Aristo luxury sedan from its sedan lineup, they said.

In addition, Toyota will look at the possibility of eliminating some other sedan models from other affiliated dealership chains, such as Toyopet and Toyota, they said.

In February, Toyota announced it will revamp its domestic dealership chains, while creating in the summer of 2005 a new Lexus dealership chain that will concentrate on selling luxury vehicle models.