10 MILLION TOYOTA CARS NOW ON OVERSEAS ROADS

According to figures compiled by Toyota Motor Sales Co., Ltd., the number of Toyota cars on overseas roads has now surpassed the 10 million mark, setting a new record for Japanese automakers.

Toyota includes both number of units sold and number of units on the road in the basic statistics the company compiles as part of its support for its overseas service network. As of the end of June 1981, these figures showed that a grand total of 13.6 million Toyota cars have been sold abroad, including those assembled overseas. Taking into account factors such as average durability, it is estimated that 10.13 million Toyotas were on the road overseas, breaking the 10 million mark for the first time in history. Toyota statistics also revealed that as of the end of June, there were 32 million Japanese-made cars in operation overseas, making Toyotas 32.7 percent of the total.

Broken down by region, the largest number of Toyota vehicles, 4.32 million, are on roads in North America, followed by Europe at 1.82 million, Oceania and Southeast Asia at 1.65 million, the Middle East at 1.12 million, Africa at 660,000 and Central and South America at 560,000.

Toyota has consistently devoted a major effort to establishing and maintaining an aftersales service system second to none for its customers in overseas countries. It has, for example, vigorously urged its distributors and dealers abroad to introduce computers into their operations as part of building up an efficient parts supply system.

To provide its overseas customers with superior after-sale service, Toyota has adapted its service organization to the specific needs characteristic of each country―from those in the U.S., where there are now about four million Toyotas on the road, to the 80 smaller countries where there are fewer than 10,000. And many countries―those in the Middle East are a notable exception―allow cars to be operated for ten or more years.

To meet its customers' every need, Toyota has created a fine-meshed service-control system that precisely matches the scale and requirements of each of its overseas distributors. And while supplying replacement parts for some cars, e.g., the 100,000 Coronas that went out of production in 1970, presents special problems, most can be solved because TMS maintains an inventory of over 200,000 items, including now outdated parts. The retail value of parts inventories now held by Toyota and its overseas distributors and dealers totals about ¥350 billion.