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NEWS OF THE WORLD MAGAZINE |
Beauty People Lifestyle Magazine |
12. December 2011
This smartphone car is one cool ride. (Photo: telegraph.co.uk)
Having a car that acts like a smartphone is awesome and very cool.
Recently, Toyota unveiled its Fun-Vii concept, a smartphone car in the future at the Tokyo Motor Show. Toyota’s Akio Toyoda, grandson of the man who founded the company, says it’s a smartphone on wheels.
If you have the money and is a real lover of car you better own this one of a kind wheels now!
(rockefellernews/rb)
11. November 2011
Toyota car company has decided to recall 550,000 cars due to some steering defects. (Photo: bikeswallpapers1.blogspot.com)
Car manufacturing giant Toyota is the latest company to order the recall of some of its units due to some defects.
According to reports, Toyota ordered back to its factories, 550,000 cars around the world due to some steering problems. Based on the data released by Toyota corporation, 447,000 vehicles in North America along with 38,000 in Japan and another 25,000 in Australia and New Zealand are set to return to the main factory of Toyota in Japan.
Toyota spokesman Dion Corbett revealed in Europe some 14,000 vehicles are also being recalled along with 10,000 in the Middle East and 14,000 in Asia outside Japan. Corbett explained since 2007, the company recieved a total of 79 reports regarding the defect.
Corbett added luckily, no one was reported injured or killed due to the steering defect. The latest report, came after the company recently revealed that its July-September profit has lowered down to 18.5 percent to 80.4 billion yen ($1 billion) on plunging sales caused by parts shortages from the tsunami disaster in northeastern Japan.
Moreover, the company said the latest recall is due to the possibility that the outer ring of the engine’s crankshaft pulley may become misaligned with the inner ring, causing noise or a warning signal to light up, the company’s U.S. sales unit. Toyota was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 as a spin-off from his father’s company Toyota Industries to create automobiles.
Three years earlier, in 1934, while still a department of Toyota Industries, it created its first product, the Type A engine, and, in 1936, its first passenger car, the Toyota AA. Toyota Motor Corporation group companies are Toyota (including the Scion brand), Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino Motors, along with several “non-automotive” companies. TMC is part of the Toyota Group, one of the largest conglomerates in the world.
(rockefellernews/rb)
10. July 2011
Lexus is no longer the top selling luxury car in the United States for 2011.(Photo: zcars.com.au)
After 11 years on top of the luxury car market in the United States, Lexus is no longer that popular among car buyers for 2011.
According to reports, Toyota Motor Corp’s 7203.T brand Lexus is not anymore the top selling luxury car in the US due to lost sales in the aftermath of the Japan earthquake and tsunami. Mark Templin, Lexus Division general manager revealed Lexus U.S. sales will fall about 17 percent to around 190,000 vehicles in 2011.
The US is considered the biggest market for Lexus. Templin explained they lose huge sales since they were not able to produce cars wanted by buyers since their primary plant in Japan was not able to manufacture sufficient cars, due to the recent tsunami that hit the top Asian country.
All Lexus models, except the RX 350 crossover sport utility vehicle, are made in Japan. He said Lexus U.S. sales fell 38 percent in June as dealers ran out of key products.” June was the bottom of the trough, and we’ve turned the corner,” Templin said.
Due to their low production, Lexus sales tumbled 18 percent in the first half of 2011 to 88,010, and German rivals BMW and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz sprinted by. BMW’s sales rose 13 percent to 113,705, and Mercedes-Benz climbed 7 percent to 110,926. If 2011 full year results end as expected, it would be thefirst time that BMW has outsold Lexus in the U.S. since 1997.
Despite their decline, Templin said the company is very confident they could bounce back in 2012. First introduced in 1989 in the United States, Lexus is now sold globally and has become Japan’s largest-selling make of premium cars.
Lexus vehicles are officially marketed in over 70 countries and territories worldwide.The Lexus marque has ranked among the ten largest Japanese global brands in market value,and the brand is a major participant in the premium automotive sector. The division’s world headquarters are located in Toyota City (Japan), with major operational centers in Brussels (Belgium) and Torrance, California (United States).
Lexus originated from a clandestine flagship sedan project that began in 1983. This effort developed into the original Lexus LS, which was the first vehicle to wear the Lexus marque upon its launch in 1989. In following years, Lexus added sedan, coupé, convertible, and SUV models.
In 2005, a hybrid version of the RX crossover debuted, and additional hybrid models were subsequently introduced to the Lexus lineup. In 2007, Lexus launched its F marque performance division with the debut of the IS F sport sedan, followed by the LFA supercar in 2009.
(rockefellernews/rb)
11. June 2011
The land of the rising sun finds itself in a dark place. Toyota's profit is sinking down the drain.
What a series of unfortunate events for Japan. One of the wealthiest country in Asia has had dramatic fall outs this year when Mother Nature decided to roar across the island nation. The land of the rising sun will have a long road to track before they see the daylight to full recovery.
But while they’re at that, one of the biggest carmakers in the world is speeding its way plummeting to lose its top post.
The automaker claims that the 9.0 monster earthquake made supply problems. What makes it worse is that the strength of their local currency against dollar drove expensive domestic productions.
Toyota Motor Corporation is expecting drastic losses worth more than $1 billion of net profits for the year 2012 compared to this fiscal year due to the disruptions that made parts of Japan suffer in wreckage.
The company further forecasted that their consolidated net income will plunge by 31 percent amounting to at least $3.4 billion this year extending up to March 31 next year compared to the $5 billion net income in the previous fiscal year.
Japanese yen is currently trading around 80 for a US dollar which is described as “beyond limit” and Toyota’s president Okio Toyoda said, “We’d like to ask the government to correct currency rates as soon as possible,” to level the playing field of competing car makers.
Global sales of the company is expected to fall by 1% from 18.99 trillion yen to 18.6 trillion yen. Because of this, America’s General Motors is expected to take over Toyota’s position as the largest automaker in the world.
Toyota brushed off this looming fall from their number one status by saying, “We don’t see it as necessary to be the largest automaker in the world. The most important thing is creating a stable business base” to stress that the company’s focus is on quality.
Between late 2009 and early 2010, Toyota has been on a slump of crisis when it recalled almost 9 million cars due to accelerator and brake defects. Thus, analysts say that the company has been exposed of its thin operations compared it its rivals partly because of the quality-issue related fiasco.
Photo credits to http://topnews.net.nz
23. May 2011
A Toyota Lexus (Photo: thefire.com)
In the hostile grow or die environment of the business world, it is very important for all business entities to constantly innovate their product and services in order to keep up with their competitors. This rule specially applies to the large public corporations because if they do not catch up, their failure will not only affect the employees, but also the economy. This is why Toyota motors has comprehended the importance of innovation and made it public knowledge about their partnership with Salesforce.com, in order to gain a foothold in the social networking and media market.
According to a spokesperson for Toyota, this partnership is going to give Toyota its own private social network group where it will be able to facilitate its transaction to the consumers in a much more efficient way. This social network will by used by Toyota to give customers the ability to check and compare prices for different Toyota cars from different Toyota dealerships all over the world. Besides using the network to market products, Toyota customers can now get alerts for low battery along with car finances and maintenance with the help of interactive services like Salesforce chatter. Toyota is putting an estimated 440 million yen in this project and Salesforce will be putting a generous sum of 223 million yen. A mobile app version will also be available in the coming months
This partnership is really a prudent decision taken by Toyota as the number of people who use social networking services keep increasing by the day. This partnership was also done at the right time as Toyota is planning to launch it Toyota friend sometime next year in Japan. For the time being, this network is only reserved for electric powered and other eco-friendly versions of the Toyota brand, so it is not known whether the traditional gasoline powered cars will be sold. Toyota and Salesforce are not the only one in this deal as Microsoft has invested close to $3 million in this partnership for promotional reasons.
(rockefellernews/yk)
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