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Toyota announced on Feb. 7 that it sold 148800 new cars in China in January 2022, down 21.5% from a year earlier, Nikkei Chinese website reported. Specifically, FAW Toyota, its two joint ventures in China, sold 41000 vehicles, down 46.0% from the same period last year, while Guangzhou Auto Toyota sold 87500 vehicles, up 0.8% from the same period last year. Sales of major models such as GAC Toyota Camry were higher than the previous year. As for the January sales performance, Toyota said: "compared with previous years, demand growth before the Spring Festival is weak". Among them, the imported premium car brand Lexus, affected by a shortage of spare parts, sold only 17500 vehicles, down 27.9 per cent from a year earlier.

The auto industry is concerned that Toyota's January sales decline in China may be due to the previous COVID-19 epidemic in Tianjin, where Toyota's joint venture plant was shut down from January 10 to 21 due to the COVID-19 epidemic in Tianjin. It is understood that the Volkswagen automatic Transmission (Tianjin) plant and the FAW-Volkswagen Tianjin plant were closed on January 10 this year, when FAW Toyota said that its plant in Tianjin had suspended production due to full-staff nucleic acid testing. FAW Toyota Tianjin plant mainly produces models such as Wechi, Carola, Crown Lufang, Asian Dragon and Asian Lion.

According to previous reports from the automobile industry, FAW Toyota currently has three vehicle bases in Tianjin, Changchun and Chengdu, among which the production base in Tianjin has a number of factories. including the first factory in Tianjin Xiqing District, the second factory in Tianjin Economic and technological Development area and the third factory in Tianjin Binhai New area, covering an area of 1.61 million square meters, the corresponding production capacity is 120000 vehicles, 100000 vehicles and 200000 vehicles respectively.

So far, Toyota has not clearly identified the specific reasons for the decline in Toyota's sales in China in January.

Looking back over the past year, data show that Toyota sold 1.944 million new cars in China in 2021, up 8.2% from a year earlier and hitting a record high for the ninth year in a row. Among them, FAW Toyota sold 860019 vehicles for the whole year, up 8% from the same period last year, while Guangzhou Auto Toyota sold 840396 vehicles, up 11% from the same period last year. It is worth mentioning that sales of more than 240000 vehicles mainly come from Lexus and imported models.

Although Toyota's sales in China reached a new high in 2021, Toyota is still under the pressure of supply chain shortage. since 2022, Toyota has adjusted its production plan in Japan's local market because of the spread of the epidemic and shortage of spare parts. on January 18 this year, Japanese Toyota announced that it would suspend production of 11 production lines at eight factories in Japan, including the Aichi Wonmachi plant, in February this year. Due to the global shortage of semiconductors, Toyota said it expects domestic and foreign production of new cars to fall by about 150000 vehicles than planned in February, with global production of about 700000 vehicles. In the Chinese market, Toyota has not reported a shortage of parts, but its Tianjin joint venture plant also had an impact on Toyota's capacity during the January 10-21 shutdown.

In terms of sales, Toyota previously set a sales target of 9 million vehicles for fiscal year 2021 (April 2021-March 2022). However, due to the epidemic, global semiconductor supply shortages and the suspension of production at 11 production lines at eight plants in Japan in February, Toyota said it expected sales targets for fiscal year 2021 (April 2021-March 2022) to be lower than the previously announced forecast of 9 million vehicles. As for this year's production plan, Toyota said earlier that it was difficult to predict this year's production due to the continued spread in Southeast Asia and the shortage of chips, but Toyota pointed out that the impact would be minimized.

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