Business

Wednesday September 12, 2007

Toyota to launch upgraded Altis next year

By C.A. ZULKIFLE



KOTA BARU: The world's No. 1 carmaker Toyota will launch a new and upgraded version of its Altis model next year as part of efforts to boost its market presence ahead of stiffer competition.

In view of Proton's consolidation efforts through strategic alliances and rival carmakers coming out with new models at a faster rate, the arrival of the new Altis is hoped to help Toyota keep abreast of the competition, said UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd managing director Datuk David Chen.

Chen said for this year, the motor company plans to record 81,000 sales for all units under its Toyota range.

Although car sales in the first half of this year was relatively slower than last year, made worst by a depressing local used car market, Chen said Toyota remains optimistic of recording a steady volume of sales for the rest of the year.

He said this after a grand opening of the new Toyota main showroom in Kelantan by its chairman Tan Sri Asmat Kamaludin.

Asked about Toyota's current fourth placing in the national customer satisfactory index (CSI), which was reported in a recent motor survey, Chen said UMW would adopt the Japanese-based Toyota Kaizen System to iron out issues pointed out in the CSI survey.

"We hope to regain the No. 1 spot soon. It is logical that Toyota retains the top spot in customer satisfaction in line with our track record of selling the most units of vehicles," he said.

Earlier, Asmat said UMW had set aside RM35mil to also upgrade its showrooms in Batu Pahat (Johor), Penang and Subang (Selangor).

He also said Toyota was performing well in the Sports Utility Market (SUV) market in Kelantan as it had chalked up sales of 920 units so far for its Inova and Avanza models.

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