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Toyota leads market for 35 years

Toyota announced this week it has had an incredibly successful 2014, cementing its dominance as market leader in southern Africa for the 35th consecutive year with 127,534 Toyota products finding a home during last year. This translates to a 19.8% market share in a market that showed great resilience, albeit with a slight year-on- year decline, totalling annual sales of 644,523 units. This is the fourth consecutive year that Toyota improves its market share. Toyota was also the number one brand in vehicle sales every month in 2014.

The Hilux continued its dominance in the Light Commercial Vehicle segment, logging 37,561 units for the year. This is 8829 units more than its closest competitor in the bakkie market. This makes Hilux not only the top-selling bakkie, but also the top-selling vehicle overall for 2014 across all segments.  From a passenger segment perspective, Toyota has shown positive growth increasing its share in this segment to 15.5% on the back of the introduction of the new Corolla (9893 units sold since its March introduction) and the Corolla Quest (7976 units sold since its May introduction); as well as the small Etios which recorded exceptional sales of 17,835 units during 2014. Other top performers in the company’s stable include the Fortuner, which leads sales in the Sports Utility Vehicle segment with consistent monthly sales in the excess of 600 units and total sales for the year at 10,088 units. In a similar vein, the company’s smaller all-wheel drive RAV4 performed exceptionally well with 5012 units sold during 2014; while the Quantum clearly remained a top favourite with 14,369 units sold. Toyota’s truck brand, Hino, retained its third position overall with a total of 3844 units sold. This follows record sales months in March (425 units sold) and August (455 units sold) and the opening of a new R55 million Hino plant in South Africa during May. Hino’s achieved its best December sales to date with 356 units sold over the festive period.  Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Toyota South Africa, Calvyn Hamman, said “We are incredibly proud of the company’s achievements during quite a tough 2014. To celebrate 35 years of market leadership is indeed an amazing performance and we wish to thank our customers and dealers for their faith in our brand.”

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