Toyota sells 50% more than expected in 07!

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The China branch of Toyota Motor corp must be one of Japans best performing branches in the world market. The Japanese motoring giant has invested heavily in China to make it one of the best performing Japanese brands in China, seemingly going against the Chinese populations 60 year general distrust of all things Japanese.

TOYOTA Motor Corp expects to sell about 50 percent more vehicles in China in 2007 than a year earlier, helped by surging demand for its Camry sedans, Bloomberg said today.

The automaker, the world’s biggest carmaker by market value, aims to sell more than 450,000 vehicles in China this year, it said in a statement handed to journalists at an auto show in Changchun city, northeastern China today. The Toyota City, Japan-based automaker sold 308,000 vehicles in the country last year.

Toyota’s first-half vehicle sales in China rose 77 percent to 212,000, led by demand for Camrys, the country’s fourth bestselling car in the period. Work began on Toyota’s seventh plant in China last month, as the company aims for a 10 percent share of the world’s second-largest auto market by 2010.

Toyota added an upgraded Corolla compact car and a Lexus hybrid car in China in the first half. It aims to add at least one more model this year, the company said earlier this month.

The automaker’s first-half share of China’s passenger car market was about 6.9 percent, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

We hope that Toyota can start to appeal to the younger generations of Chinese consumers, the 20-30 year old range with some funky cars. What we’re saying, Toyota, is that you drop the Yaris and bring the Scion range out in China.