Toyota Spain Dealer Profits Lag Sales Gains, CEO Says

MADRID – Toyota Spain dealers will see average profitability of 0.9%-1.0% in 2014, according to Jacques Pieraerts, CEO of the Japanese automaker’s Spanish subsidiary.

That is short of the 1.5% margin the company considers adequate for a market such as Spain’s.

Toyota’s Spanish distribution network has held steady at about 80 dealers over the past five years and has been profitable during that period except for 2012.

Pieraerts says Toyota Spain forecasts full-year sales of 42,700 cars, a 15% increase over 2013.

“About 8,000 of those more than 42,000 vehicles will be hybrids, in line with the 20% share normally recorded by Toyota Spain,” Pieraerts says, adding the automaker has kept its market share at about 5% during the country’s economic difficulties of recent years.

Pieraerts projects 2015 sales of 47,000 vehicles, a 10% improvement over 2014. He says the increase will result from growth of Toyota’s hybrid range to 27% of the automaker’s overall volume in Spain.

The executive says the Lexus brand will sell 3,050 cars in Spain during 2014, a 55% improvement over 2013 and well above the luxury sector’s 13% overall increase forecasted by ANFAC, the Spanish automakers association.

Toyota’s Mirai fuel-cell vehicle unveiled at the Los Angeles auto show will be introduced in Europe in 2015, but only in Denmark, the U.K. and Germany, where it will be priced at €66,000 ($82,270) not including value-added tax.

Mirai sales in 2015 and 2016 will be limited to 50-100 units, Pieraerts says. The FCV is to launch in other main European markets in 2017.