Small but meaningful

Having a sizable upper middle class population, Indian four wheeler segment has done quite a good business tapping them, best to their advantage. Though competition is tough, the car manufacturers, especially the small car producers are coming up with many attracting models to lure this segment of buyers. By & large, they have kept the cost also at a satisfactory level with lot of innovations & simplifications. After the entry of Nano, now even the lower middle class has access to four wheelers.
Given the situation of demand, many four wheeler manufacturing stalwarts, who never thought to descend to small cars, now planning seriously to come down. Maruti weared history when it unveiled the first-ever affordable small car, since a couple of decades back & then followed Hyundai, Fiat, Tata. Now in the recent fray, here comes Mahindra & more recently Toyota. They are planning in a big way to tap the small car segment. Japanesse car manufacturer Toyota with its Indian partner Kirloskar, recently announced to launch its small family car by 2010 in India.
The company’s small car, however, will not compete with Tata motor’s small car Nano, but it is a sincere attempt to launch a small car according to Indian need as vowed by the Managing Director of the Company. Right now they are also non-committal about the probable price of this car. Though Toyota has in the past denied any interest in developing a low-cost small car, now with the changing time it has every compulsion to compete & be successful, due to the fact that nearly 70 percent of India’s car marker is pegged to be in small car segment.
Toyota’s entry to small car segment, may also help to shore up its market share close to 10 percent in the fiercely competitive atmosphere, as forecasted by the auto analysts. The company’s present market share is just three percent. Hence Toyota has planned its venture at the right time & at right prospective, when Indian small car market is skying high with its middle class anxious customers, who need the best at low cost.