Toyota Motors Corporation

Toyota Motors Corporation

Introduction:

Toyota Motor Company was founded in 1937, its headquarter is located in Japan but Toyota also

operates in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, and other places as shown in the map

below:

[pic 1] 

 Source: Toyota Motor Corporation 2012 Annual Report

Toyota has rich history it spent about 80 years working in the market of producing and selling

the cars 1, during this period of time, the company has produced a lot of models.

Toyota is considered as one of the largest companies and the leading auto

Manufacturer in the world, it has over than 50 factories in more than 25 countries and regions in

addition to Japan 1, the main reason for Toyota Motor Company success is producing cars and

vehicles with high quality at prices that is suitable for most people, Toyota definitely has a very

strong market position and brand recognition, in addition to producing and selling cars Toyota

also sell minivans, commercial vehicles, and related parts and accessories

As of March 31st 2013 the number of people employed with Toyota was 333,498 worldwide,

and the company’s revenue for the year was $213 billion dollars.1

Success Features:

Toyota’s success comes from its strength points which made the company one of the top auto

manufacturers and one of the most popular car brands in the world.

Brand recognition element is considered one of the main strength points of Toyota Motors

Corporation, a professional appearance and image helps the company to build credibility, trust

and loyalty of the customers and strengthens the company position amongst its competitors, also

brand recognition helps to motivate the employees as they will be brand ambassadors and they

will feel connected to the corporate brand which will make them work harder to achieve the

company’s goals.2

Also Toyota has a great market position in a lot of countries around the world. According to a study

Toyota Motors Corporation's biggest market share is in Japan and it was equal to 45.5% in FY2012, the

second biggest market share is in Asia (excluding Japan and China) and it was equal to 13.4%, then there

is the North America share equals to 12.2%, in addition Toyota’s market share in Europe was 4.3%,

the company has also a 7% share of the Chinese market and a good market share percentage in South and

Central America, Oceania, Africa and the Middle East.1

[pic 2] [pic 3]

Source: J.D. Power Automotive Forecasting

We can define Market share as the part or percentage of a specific company to total volume of

the industry that the company is part of, a strong market share helps in maximizing the

company’s profit locally and internationally, and helps in evaluating the competitive position of

the company which will help to plan for the future as companies always look to expand their

share of the market.

On another hand Toyota focused on research and development to help improving and developing

its current products and to make new products, research and development will help the company

to do that according to customers needs which vary from country to another.

As the price of fuel changes a lot from year to another, it is for sure very hard for companies like

Toyota to know what cars people will be interested in buying in the future,3 for example auto

manufacturers faced a problem during the past five years because of raising in fuel prices and

some environmental concerns, which lead most consumers to to be interested in from small and

hybrid cars, which considered more fuel-efficient cars rather than big ones, also there were

increasing in material and equipment such as steel and plastic prices which will cause a raise in

production cost and total prices.1

Auto manufactories will have tow options in this case either to switch its production from big

cars to smaller and more fuel efficient ones or keep the same products and wait for fuel prices to

drop again in the future, here we will notice the importance of research and development, the

more the company focused on R&D the more it can predict the market needs and come out with

the best solution.

Toyota’s interest in emerging markets was increasing during the past few years, Toyota noticed a

big opportunity to strengthen its supply chain in these markets as they are growing and the

demand is increasing in them, because of that Toyota decided to increase its presence in them,

and it was able to provide vehicles that meets the needs of the customers in the emerging

markets, which will reflect in a good way on the revenue of the company and lead to an increase

in the total revenue.

Toyota Motors company had a successful experience in the Indonesian market, the company has

been selling and producing in this market for over than 35 years,1 and it had a very good impact

on the company as the revenue coming out from this market was increasing rapidly in the past

few years, and now Indonesia is considered the best market for Toyota, in the same time