The enduring global economic crisis brings more bad news for Toyota. Citing an unnamed senior official, Japan's top-selling newspaper Yomiuri said that Toyota's domestic output that accounts for about half of the firm's worldwide production, will drop to 3 million vehicles in 2009, down 25 percent from 2008 when it produced 4 million units. What makes things even worse is that the unnamed official told the newspaper that "producing 3 million vehicles is the minimum necessary for Toyota to keep its full-time workers."While Toyota's spokesman Keisuke Kirimoto declined to back up the report from Yomiuri, he did note that the last time that the company's domestic production fell under 3 million was 30 years ago, in 1979, when it rolled out 2.99 million vehicles in Japan.
Earlier this month, Toyota announced that it would shut down its operations at all 12 of its Japanese factories for three days in January and 11 days over February and March. In 2008, the company saw its Japanese market sales drop by 7.4% over 2007.
Via: Businessweek , Source: Associated Press
