Toyota may manufacture its globally popular sedan, Camry, in India, said deputy managing director of Toyota India. This would allow the Japanese carmaker to escape the huge import duty on imported cars and may bring down price of Camry by as much as 20-25% or Rs 4-5 lakh, if the company passes on the entire benefit to the consumer.
Camry is currently imported from Japan and attracts a composite import duty of 110%. At present, Camry sells at a price starting from Rs 21 lac and competes with the likes of Mercedes C Class and Skoda Superb in the premium segment, which has a market size of 8,000 units a year. If locally produced, it will be pitted against Honda Accord, Hyundai Sonata and Skoda Laura in the much larger executive segment, where more than 25,000 cars are sold every year.
“We are contemplating local assembling for Camry depending on volumes. It is one of our flagship products and we are selling in excess of 500 cars per year,” Toyota Kirloskar Motor deputy managing director (marketing) Sandeep Singh said.
Toyota is also looking at launching Fortuner sports-utility vehicle (SUV) into the Indian market sometime later this year. The SUV will be brought in through the completely-knocked-down (CKD) route, in which the company will assemble all parts of the vehicle in India after importing it. This will help Toyota maintain price competitiveness as it would not attract the huge import duty of bringing in fully made car.
