Toyota Motor Corporation Business Strategy Meeting 2008 - New York (Webcast) - Final.

Original Source: FD (FAIR DISCLOSURE) WIRE

STEVE STURM, VP CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS, TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION: Good morning and welcome. For those of you who do not know me, my name is Steve Sturm. I am the Group Vice President responsible for Corporate Communications and Strategic Planning for Toyota Motor North America here in New York. I'm pleased to be with you this morning.

I would like to take a minute to introduce some of the Toyota executives who have joined us here today. From Toyota Motor Corporation, Senior Managing Directors, Mr. Teiji Tachibana, and Mr. Ijichi. From Toyota Motor Sales, Chairman and CEO, Mr. Funo, and President, Jim Lentz. From our officer here in New York, President, [Mr. Haiakawa], and Senior Vice President, Dian Ogilvie.

From Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America, Executive Vice President Head of Research and Development, Mr. Takahashi. Executive Vice President and President of our Georgetown, Kentucky plant, Steve St. Angelo.

From Toyota Financial Services, President and CEO, George Borst, and Group Vice President, CFO, John Stillo.

Thank you. Now I would like to give you a brief overview of today's agenda. Our first presenter today is Mr. Watanabe. He is the President of Toyota Motor Corporation. Mr. Watanabe joined Toyota in 1964. Much of his career has been in corporate planning, administration and manufacturing, including managing of Toyota's [Motomachi] plant, one of our largest in the world.

Most recently he held positions as Executive Vice President, where he led a revolutionary cost-cutting effort, known as CCC21. He became President of Toyota in June of 2005. He will be followed by Vice Chairman of the Board, and head of Global R&D, Mr. Okamoto.

Mr. Okamoto joined Toyota in 1967. His first assignment was in body engineering, where he remained most of his focus during his career. He has served as Chief Engineer with responsibility for both rear and front wheel drive vehicle development programs. After becoming a member of the Board of Directors in 1996, he continued to oversee body engineering before supervising overseas product development. He became Vice Chairman and Representative Director in June of 2008.

This morning's presentation will last approximately 30 minutes. Following the presentations we will have time for a round of 30 minute Q&A session for the financial community and a 15 minute Q&A session for the media.

Today's presentations and Q&A sessions will be available as webcast replays at our websites following the meeting. At the conclusion of the formal portion of the meeting today we will serve lunch at the registration area, where you will have a chance to speak directly with our executive team. A copy of the presentation is in front of you and you're welcome to take that home with you.

Before we begin the global presentation, I would like to draw your attention to our Safe Harbor statement on the screen behind me regarding forward-looking information. You do not have to memorize that statement.

It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Watanabe.

KATSUAKI WATANABE, PRESIDENT, TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION: Good morning everyone. Thank you for your joining us today. Today I would like to discuss our corporate strategy. Our aim is to better adapt to changes in our business environment, while achieving steady growth over the medium to long term.

Our business environment has changed significantly over the last few years. Factors such as the growth of market in the source-rich countries and the emerging markets, greater interest in a low carbon society, and certain raw material price have contributed to such change.

In response to such major changes, we will focus our corporate resources on three strategic priorities. First, we will increase our supply of low CO2 and fuel efficient vehicles, including hybrid and compact vehicles.

Second, we will expand our business in growing resource-rich countries and emerging markets. In particular, we will make a full entry into the Indian and Brazilian markets.

Finally, we will speedup (inaudible) hybrid and electric vehicle development to further strengthen our technological competitiveness.

Now I will explain the specific details of our corporate strategy for each region. Our basic strategy is to have operations tailored to various conditions in each region. I will begin with a discussion of the US market. The US is a market that is expected to grow over the medium to long term. However, the US auto market is this year -- the US auto market this year is facing a sharp downturn and a rapid shift in demand toward compact vehicles.

In the short term we are increasing supply of Corolla and Yaris, which are currently in high demand. In addition, as demand for hybrids is expected to continue to grow, we will build the Prius at our new Mississippi plant.

In addition, we will consolidate the production of full-size pickups at our Texas plant. We will establish our Indiana plant as a flexible production base to produce frame and unibody models in response to change in demand.

Despite some level of decline, the US truck market can expect steady demand of (inaudible) vehicles. We intended to build a robust position in this market by setting a direct tier products, as well as improving the fuel efficiency of our overall lineup.

Next I will discuss Western Europe. Toyota plans to launch models that achieve world-class levels of low CO2 emissions, such as the new iQ, and new hybrid vehicles. All totaled, Toyota is planning to launch 18 new models that emit less CO2, including [boss] brand new models and improved versions of existing ones later this year and into next year.

Next, I will discuss resource-rich countries and emerging markets, starting with the Indian and Brazilian markets. We plan to start operations at our new plants in India and Brazil in 2010 and 2011, respectively. We also plan to launch newly developed compact vehicles in [boss] countries, completing our entry into these markets.

In the development process we will ensure profitability by greatly reducing cost and applying low-cost technologies to other models. At the same time, however, we will maintain the trust of customers by keeping Toyota's uncompromising global standards for fundamental vehicle performance.

In China we already offer a broad lineup, and have been steadily increasing our local production capacity. …