NAGOYA (Kyodo) Toyota Motor Corp. plans to close some 300 dealerships across Japan over the next three years amid a shrinking domestic market, sources said.
Toyota plans to support voluntary efforts of about 290 sales companies to consolidate or close their outlets, which currently total about 4,900 nationwide, the sources said.
The companies will choose which outlets to consolidate or close based on local-area sales and demand, they said.
Toyota, however, does not plan to automatically close outlets in sparsely populated areas where demand is weak in view of dealers' responsibility to provide vehicle repairs and maintenance, they said.
Toyota currently has four dealer channels, including Netz and Toyopet.
In 2008, vehicle sales in Japan totaled about 3.21 million units, down from about 6 million in 1990, as sales slumped partly due to the declining population and dwindling interest in cars among young people.
Toyota has a market share of more than 40 percent in Japan.
Winter bonuses OK
NAGOYA (Kyodo) Toyota Motor Corp. and its labor union agreed Wednesday to make no changes to the average winter bonus, set at ¥930,000, taking into consideration environmentally friendly cars are selling well but the group has been suffering operating losses, company officials said.
When the company and the union set an average annual bonus in the spring at ¥1.86 million for the 2009 business year, they decided for the first time in 11 years to renegotiate the winter portion of the bonus later due to uncertainties about the firm's business performance.