Toyota Motor is considering lowering its U.S. sales forecast as record gasoline prices damp the demand for pick-up trucks and other big vehicles, media reports said on Monday.
Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota's president, told the Financial Times newspaper that he was "not sure" that increased sales of smaller cars, such as its Yaris and Corolla models and the Prius hybrid, would make up for the decline in sales of sports utility vehicles and pick-up trucks.
"As of now we haven't changed our original annual plan yet, but we may have to scale back," Watanabe told FT, adding that Toyota would revisit its U.S. forecast at a midyear business review later this month.
The company originally planned to sell just over 2.64 million vehicles in the U.S. market this year. But senior Managing Director Takeshi Suzuki said on May 8 Toyota may revise the forecast.
U.S. sales for Toyota fell 3.3 percent to 789,448 vehicles in the first four months of this year as industrywide demand in the U.S. fell 8.9 percent.
Demand for cars and light trucks in the U.S. may fall to the lowest since 1995, according to Standard & Poor's.
Source: Xinhua/Agencies
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