Toyota Motor Corp. plans to produce around 4.6 million cars globally in the July to December period, which would be its highest output for the second half of a year, as it attempts to regain ground lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, sources familiar with the plan said Monday.
The firm hopes to see a 5% increase in output from a year earlier. Its previous record output of 4.53 million vehicles for the period was marked in 2015.
Toyota has informed its suppliers of the plan, the sources said.
The automaker produced 841,915 cars in September alone, the highest number for the month of September and up 11.7% from a year earlier, on growing production in the Chinese, North American and European markets.
The increase followed declines in July and August, and Toyota expects the recovery to continue after October, the sources said.
In the first half of the year, the company produced 3.31 million vehicles worldwide, down 28.6%.
For all of 2020, it is expecting a total output of around 7.9 million vehicles, down around 13% from the previous year.