Automaker to start selling Lexus brand in Japan

Tuesday, July 26, 2005 | 9:38 a.m.

Toyota Motor Corp., the world's biggest automaker by market value, will begin selling its Lexus brand on Aug. 30 in Japan to increase its share of the luxury segment in the world's second-largest auto market.

Toyota, the biggest seller of luxury cars in the U.S., will rename four existing sedan models under the Lexus brand by 2006, aiming to sell up to 60,000 units a year through 180 dealers in Japan's 120,000 unit luxury vehicle market, the company said in June.

President Katsuaki Watanabe is bringing home its luxury brand, developed in 1989 for the U.S. market, to compete with DaimlerChrysler AG's Mercedes-Benz brand and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG. Lexus sales rose 11 percent to 287,927 in the U.S. in 2004, making it the most popular luxury brand in the market for the fifth consecutive year.

"Toyota's Lexus project will definitely help it gain a bigger share in the luxury car market at home," said Norihito Kanai, an auto analyst at Meiji Dresdner Asset Management Co. in Tokyo, which manages $2.5 billion in equities, including auto shares.

"It has more brand value than Toyota-brand luxury cars."

The carmaker, which makes four out of every 10 vehicles on Japan's roads, now sells the Lexus GS as the Toyota Aristo domestically. The Lexus SC is the Toyota Soarer, the Lexus IS model is called the Toyota Altezza, and the Lexus LS is sold as the Toyota Celsior. Toyota, based in central Japan's Aichi Prefecture, already sells 50,000 units a year of the four luxury Toyota cars it plans to rebrand as Lexus models.