Toyota to ramp up Fortuner's capacity

Toyota Kirloskar Motor today said it would ramp up the assembling capacity of its most successful SUV in the country, Fortuner, to 1,000 units from next month on the back growing demand.

The company also said it already has booking for 6,500 units of the SUV, which is priced at 18.9 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), and would be supplied after the middle of this year.

"We are further increasing the capacity of Fortuner to 1,000 units from next month keeping in mind the growing demand for this product in the country," Toyota's Deputy Managing Director (Marketing), Sandeep Singh said.

Buoyed by the tremendous response Fortuner has received so far, the company raised the assembling capacity of SUV at its Bangalore plant in phased manner from 500 units per month initially to 950 units at present.

"In view of growing demand for Fortuner, we first increased the capacity from 500 units to 750 units then to 800 and now the current capacity stands at 950 units per month," he added.

The Japanese automaker, which is present in India in a joint venture with Kirloskar Group, had closed the bookings for Fortuner for couple of a months last year due to capacity constraint. But it has again started booking orders for the SUV from January this year, Singh said.

"We have received orders for 6,500 units which we expect to deliver by July or August this year," he said.