Japan: Toyota keeps adjusting July auto output on parts shortage

Toyota Motor, Japan's largest automaker, will adjust its output plan lower for July by cutting 50,000 units globally due to the continuing delay in component deliveries. But its annual output plan has been kept unchanged at 9.7 million units, according to the company.

Toyota plans to produce 800,000 units globally, including 250,000 units at domestic plants and the balance at overseas plants, but it hopes to produce an average of 850,000 units over July-September.

For its domestic production, the company plans to shut down 10 lines at seven plants out of 28 lines at 14 plants across Japan, for around 1-10 days at each plant in July due to the shortage of semi-conductors, and because of the delay in component supply over the COVID-19 cases confirmed among suppliers which had slowed down their operations.

A sales official from an auto parts supplier in central Japan shared that logistics disruptions caused by the COVID lockdown in Shanghai over April-May remains and is impacting Toyota's output.

"Toyota has high complete-car backlog orders, so it has kept its annual output plan unchanged. But we really wonder if the production can be lifted in coming months, as we don't think the condition will show clear signs of improvement anytime soon," he said.

The sales official shared Toyota's domestic output in June would be around 11,000 units/day on average, and it plans to produce about 12,000 units/day in July, much lower than its previous plan of over 13,000 units on average over June-August.

"Not only Toyota, but also other Japanese automakers are facing the similar issues. So Japan's steel consumption by the domestic auto sector won't recover as soon as expected," a Tokyo-based sheet trader said.

The latest data from Japan Iron & Steel Federation showed that carbon steel products ordered by Japanese auto sector totaled 524,661 tonnes in May, down 19.5% on year and 0.1% lower on month, those of special steel at 338,153 tonnes, down 17.2% on year and 0.3% lower on month.

Written by Yoko Manabe, yoko.manabe@mysteel.com

This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.