Frankfurt Auto Show Update - Toyota to sell 800,000 cars in Europe in 2003

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FRANKFURT, Sept 8, 2003; Reuters reported that Japan's Toyota Motor Corp said on Monday it aimed to sell 800,000 units in Europe in 2003, two years ahead of schedule, and said it hoped to boost this to 1.2 million vehicles per year by 2010.

"We hope to achieve annual sales of 1.2 million by 2010. This is our aspiration and our challenge," Takis Athanasopoulos, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Marketing Europe, told a news conference.

Toyota, which had been aiming for sales of 790,000 vehicles in Europe this year, also said strong growth in Poland and Spain had helped lift market share on the continent to 4.8 percent in the first eight months of the year from 4.5 percent in the same period a year ago.

The world's third-biggest carmaker has said it is aiming to sell one million cars in Europe by 2005 as it grabs market share from homegrown players and steals a march on Japanese peers thanks to top-selling models that seem to have cracked European tastes.

Separately, Tadashi Arashima, head of Toyota Motor Marketing Europe, told Reuters on the sidelines of a presentation the company hoped to raise its market share on the continent to between 4.8 percent and 4.9 percent in 2003 and to five percent in 2004.

He said Toyota expects the western European car market to fall around three percent to four percent this year.

Toyota is the world's healthiest carmaker, improving profitability thanks to cost cuts, increased localisation and higher sales, particularly of key models like the Yaris and Corolla.