Toyota Motor said that its annual vehicle production may fall short of its initial target due to the ongoing global shortage of semiconductors, Reuters reported.
In the first four months of the new fiscal year, which began in April this year, Toyota failed to meet its interim targets, and there are concerns about the company’s ability to stick to its record annual production target of 9.7 million vehicles.
Data show that Toyota’s production picked up in August, but production in October and November is expected to be about 750,000 and 800,000 units respectively, lower than the average monthly production of 900,000 units from September to November, which was estimated at the end of last month.
Toyota did not disclose how much the annual production target will be lowered, but Toyota’s production for the first five months of the current fiscal year is 6.7 percent lower than initially planned. A Toyota spokesman said the revised target will be disclosed once the production outlook becomes clearer.
The Japanese automaker had hoped the chip shortage would ease, allowing it to increase production in the second half of the fiscal year to make up for the constrained output in the first half of the fiscal year, but Friday’s announcement dampened that hope.
In addition, Toyota said it will suspend 11 production lines at eight domestic Japanese plants for two to nine days next month, which will affect the production of a variety of models including the Corolla, RAV4 and Yaris.
