KUALA LUMPUR: UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd, a unit of UMW Holdings Bhd (fundamental: 2.2; valuation: 1.2), aims to sell 100,000 units of Toyota and Lexus vehicles this year compared with 103,636 units it sold in 2014.

“Previously, UMW Toyota forecast a sale of 96,000 units this year. With this launch, we project to sell 100,000 units this year. The sales will be supported by our best-selling models Vios and Hilux, as well as the all-new Camry hybrid that we are launching today [yesterday],” UMW Toyota president Datuk Ismet Suki told reporters yesterday. Of the models, Ismet said Vios generated 41% of the total sales, followed by Hilux with 25%.

Ismet said the all-new Camry hybrid will be priced below RM200,000 per unit.

“On average, we target to sell 900 units of Toyota Camry models monthly, of which 750 units will be hybrid models and the remaining 150 units will be gasoline models,” he said, adding that the group had sold 116,000 units of Toyota Camry since its introduction in the country in 1994.

Following the launch, the group also unveiled a new assembly line at its plant to manufacture Toyota Camry models, which will be operated and managed by its wholly-owned subsidiary Assembly Services Sdn Bhd.

Ismet said the new assembly line is capable of producing 9,000 units of Toyota Camry variants annually, comprising 7,000 hybrid  units and 2,000 gasoline units.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on March 24, 2015.