Toyota Kirloskar Motor, the Indian division of the global brand has been around for more than two decades in the Indian market. During all these years, Toyota has not really penetrated the Indian market apart from two models that are available in the Indian market now – the Innova Crysta and the Toyota Fortuner. Well, we have two Toyota fanboys from Kerala, who are talking about what went wrong with the brand in the Indian market.

This video by Talking Cars shows two Toyota loyal fanboys talking about the brand in India. In the video, they explore what went wrong with Toyota. Note that the opinions mentioned in this article are not our own, and all the views that we have mentioned below are from this video. Many of you may even disagree, and argue that they are doing quite alright.

Both of them are not happy with what Toyota is doing at the moment in the Indian market. They call Toyota’s strategy as clever marketing and they claim that a lot of smartphones sellers follow the same. The mobile phone brands get the components made in a single plant in China and then they put their brand logos on it to sell the device under their name. Both of them claim that Toyota is bringing the same culture to the Indian car market.

Not enough products in India

The video claims that Toyota has not launched enough products in the Indian market. While the Japanese manufacturer offers a long list of products in the international markets, not many are available in India.

While Toyota tried entering new segments by launching products like the Etios, Etios Liva and the Yaris, they were not very successful and that’s because most of them were expensive compared to the competition. They also claim that Toyota is not utilising its plant in Karnataka to its full capacity, for reasons best known to the company.

When Toyota launched the Etios in India, they sourced some of the components used in the 1.4-litre diesel engine from Japan. That is why the Etios and the Etios Liva were costlier compared to the other vehicles in the segment.

On re-bagded products

The duo claims that the new joint venture with Suzuki is definitely bringing business to Toyota in India. Products like the Glanza (rebagded Maruti Suzuki Baleno) and Urban Cruiser (rebadged Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza) are getting decent numbers. In fact, according to sales data, Toyota sells more rebadged products than its original products in the Indian market.  Since Toyota offers a longer warranty and lower after-sales service cost, more people are buying these rebadged products.

However, they are sad that Toyota is not putting enough efforts to make the product look like that they are from Toyota stable. Both of them remain quite hopeful for the future Toyota products in the Indian market, including the all-new Creta/Seltos rival that Maruti Suzuki and Toyota are working on together.