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Toyota reaching for world dominion

A memo leaked from the Toyota Corporation on Monday titled the Global Master Plan revealed the car manufacturers ambitions to overtake General Motors as the worlds biggest supplier of cars by grabbing a 15% share of the global market by 2010. The Japanese car manufacturer is already the world?s number 2 carmaker, having recently overtaken Ford Automobiles. Now Toyota is seemingly bent on expansion. Although keeping shtum about the leaked memo, spokesman Paul Nolasco announced that Toyota is planning action on increasing their market shares in the four key developing markets for cars India, China, Russia and Brazil.

The rapidly growing rate of motorization in these huge economies is especially attractive for car manufactures as demand in the western markets is slowly reaching saturation point. And while companies like Honda, GM and DaimlerChrysler have invested in these markets and are considering expansion, Toyota already has a head start with factories in China, India and Brazil and a plant due to open in Russia in 2007.

In order to achieve their ambitious goal to sell 9.8 million vehicles in 2008 alone, Toyota is following a double strategy. For the energy conscious Western markets it is developing models with high energy efficiency and low consumption like the Toyota Prius, and for the emerging markets it is going to produce a budget model for families with a low disposable income. If the strategy continues to be successful, the Japanese manufacturer might soon give the giant GM a run for their money