Toyota cuts 2008 car sales forecast

Last Updated: Monday, July 28, 2008--CBC News

Toyota Motor Corp. cut its 2008 sales forecast on Monday, a sign of further trouble for the global car industry.

The revised predication also means the automobile maker will reduce production at its main subsidiary for the first time in seven years.

Toyota, now the world's largest vehicle producer, said it expects to sell in the range of 9.5 million cars and trucks in 2008. That figure represented a cut of 350,000 vehicles, or 3.5 per cent of total production, compared to the 9.85 million units the company figured to sell in earlier forecasts.

Even with the forecast reduction, however, Toyota's new projection target of 9.5 million cars and trucks represents a one per cent gain compared to its sales last year.

Analysts said Toyota faces the same slumping car market, driven by higher oil prices and sputtering economic growth, as do the other automobile markers.

Toyota now predicts it will produce fewer vehicles at its main subsidiary, Toyota Industries Corp., the first such drop in the past seven years.

Toyota Industries will make 8.43 million vehicles this year, according to company estimates. That is a drop of one per cent versus the number of cars and trucks Toyota built in 2007.

The company's other two main vehicle-producing subsidiaries, Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hinso Motors Ltd., build the remaining one million cars and trucks.

The Toyota revision is bad news for a sector already reeling from the poor performance posted by American auto makers recently.

Last week, ailing Ford Motor Co. posted its worst quarter ever as the car company posted a whopping $8.78-billion US loss for the second three months of the fiscal year.