Toyota cuts 2008 vehicle sales forecast for Thailand

BANGKOK, July 22 (Reuters) - Thailand's car and truck sales
are projected to rise 3 percent in 2008 to around 650,000,
Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) said on Tuesday, cutting its
forecast of 11 percent growth to 700,000 made in January.

An expected 5 percent fall in 1-tonne pickup truck sales,
which account for 60 percent of total domestic vehicle sales,
would contribute to the slower overall vehicle sales growth,
Toyota's Thai chief executive, Mitsuhiro Sonoda, said.

The soaring diesel price has hit local sales of small
pickup trucks, the mainstay of the Thai auto industry. Annual
truck sales are projected to fall for the third straight year
in 2008 to around 385,000 from 405,865 in 2007, Sonoda told
reporters.

Domestic passenger car sales are projected to outperform
trucks in growth term, rising 29 percent this year to 220,000,
according to Toyota.

Toyota has a 51 percent share of the Thai passenger car
market and 43 percent of its small truck segment, Sonoda told a
news conference.

"Due to the dramatic rise in the price of diesel, there is
a sudden demand from Thai customers for about 1,000
gasoline-engine trucks from us each month," a Toyota Thai
executive said.

Most 1-tonne Thai pickup trucks run on diesel.

"These buyers then can modify the gasoline-engine trucks to
run on LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) which is about four times
cheaper than diesel here," he said.

Soaring oil prices have not hurt Thailand's large auto
export industry, which accounts for 10 percent of total
exports, Toyota Motor Thailand's vice chairman, Ninnart
Chaithirapinyo, said.

Thailand is on track to achieve its target of exporting
about 770,000 vehicles this year, as it shipped out about
385,000 in the first half, he told Reuters.

Toyota plans to export nearly 300,000 complete cars and
trucks from Thailand in 2008.

Thai auto exports, the country's third-biggest export
sector after electronics and electrical appliances, earned $8.7
billion in the first half of 2008, according to the Commerce
Ministry.
(Reporting by Vithoon Amorn; Editing by Alan Raybould)