No impact of workers' strike on November sales, says Toyota

Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) has said the lockout at its car manufacturing plant at Bidadi due to workers' strike will not impact car sales in the near future.

"A week before the festive season began, we had supplied enough number of vehicles to all dealerships to take care of the festive demand. In fact, we have sufficient inventory at our dealerships and at the factory premises to take care of the demand for November," Naveen Soni, Senior Vice President, Sales & Service, Toyota Kirloskar Motor told DH.

The company declared lockout at its factory on November 10 after around 1,200 workers went on a "sit-in strike", demanding reinstatement of the service of one of the Union members.

He said the impact from the workers' strike is almost nil as 50% supply of A & B segment cars is coming from Maruti Suzuki. "The sales of these two segment cars is booming and the company is getting the supply from Maruti," Soni said.

He said the supply of Glanza and Urban Cruiser models is coming from Maruti's Gujarat and Haryana plants. During the month of October, Toyota's 48% of total sales came from A&B segments. During the month of October, TKM clocked a growth of 52% at 12,373 units when compared to the wholesales of 8,116 units in September 2020. However, the company may face issues with the supply of Yaris, Innova and Fortuner vehicles, which are manufactured at Bidadi. "We have to wait and see how to manage the situation in the post-festival period," Soni said.

The company is aided by four factors such as festive season, pent up demand, attractive finance schemes and personal transport demand due to Covid-19. All these factors are helping us to push vehicles in the entry-level category.

"The first two factors being topical are bound to gradually taper down, beginning next month. We have already witnessed a decrease in pent-up demand from 36% in the earlier months to around 20% last month. Similarly, festive demand will also last till about the end of this month. Therefore, what is more prone to sustain are factors like consolidation of the market at the lower-end due to personal mobility issues and the variety of schemes & offers that OEMs can come up with," Soni said.

Toyota has seen a 10%-13% increase in order taking this year on Dhanteras when compared to the same period last year. In terms of retail sales (dealer’s sale to customer) also, the company has witnessed a 12% growth when compared to Dhanteras in 2019, he added.