TOYOTA: 'Year of opportunity'

Date: 01 July 2013

"After four years of falling back in terms of share and volume, we've got positive energy back and hope it's the start of things to come as we see [this] year as the year of opportunity," Harrison continues. "We've got a very cautious view of the market and economy, so we're being very cautious about believing the market recovery will enable growth, and consequently that growth can only come from taking share from the competition."

Harrison says the new Auris, Verso and Rav4 account for 25-30% of Toyota's volume. The biggest one in volume terms is the new Auris hatchback, joined for the first time by an estate model. "We believe we've a really big job to do with the Auris, probably more than any other car," reveals Harrison. "It's still a growing nameplate - we only launched it in 2006/07, and in reality when the 2010 minor change came it was the same time as a lot of recall activity, so there was a diversion of funds away from launching a new model, with the downside that we've underinvested in the credentials of the Auris brand.

"We've got work to do to invest and get ourselves on the consideration set. Our strategy, probably for the first time, is fleet first. We've got more to deliver - we've underperformed significantly in fleet with this car and the work is to reverse this trend," he says. "That doesn't mean doing a lot of Motability or daily rental - we've got to get new people out there driving cars to get a whole new focus on fleet business."

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