Toyota sees European sales marginally lower in 2015

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp expects sales in Europe to fall slightly this year as higher deliveries in the western part of the region are unlikely to offset a sharp drop in Russia, the carmaker's regional sales head said on Monday.

The Japanese auto group, which counts 56 countries, including Israel and Turkey, as part of its European market, sold 888,000 vehicles in the region last year.

"The Russian market at the beginning of the year wasn't down so badly, we had some carry-over sales from the previous year ... the full impact will hit all car companies, not just Toyota, in the second half," Karl Schlicht told journalists ahead of the Frankfurt auto show.

He added Toyota's European shipments this year would likely be 1.0 to 2.0 percent shy of last year's figures, but expects to see some growth next year, mainly on the back of further recovery in western Europe and new models.

Toyota's new head of European operations, Johan van Zyl, said separately he expected sales in the region to grow by 1.0 percent next year. He also added the carmaker had not been impacted by the downturn in China.

"We are still targeting to sell 1.1 million vehicles there this year and we are still on track to achieve that," he said.

Toyota sees its market share in Europe at 4.7 percent this year, buoyed by the popularity of hybrids.

The carmaker's next challenge is its push into fuel cell vehicles (FCVs), which run on electricity generated from cells that combine hydrogen with oxygen. Toyota hopes it can popularise the technology as it did with the Prius, which it launched in 1997 to become the world's top-selling hybrid car.

Toyota is launching its new FCV, the Mirai, in Europe this month, at first only in Germany, the United Kingdom and Denmark, where the necessary infrastructure is available, followed by Belgium early next year.

Toyota targets European Mirai sales of between 50-100 this and next year, with 47 orders received in the region so far.

Future rollout of the Mirai, which carries a price tag of 66,000 euros ($74,685) excluding VAT, will depend on the availability of filling stations and the challenge to make it more affordable, executives said.

"We see a rapidly growing interest and support from both governments and energy providers to invest and deploy the hydrogen infrastructure in Europe," Van Zyl said.

(Reporting by Agnieszka Flak)