KARACHI, Aug 20: The Indus Motor Company (IMC) on Wednesday launched the new Toyota Corolla at the Expo Centre.

Akira Okabe, Senior Managing Director Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan, said that the Corolla sales in 2007 exceeded 35,000 units which was the second consecutive year that Pakistan had achieved the number one position for this car in Asia.

However, auto industry analysts said that the new model had been launched after a gap of six years. Not only this, the customers had seen the arrival of new Corolla in 2002 after a gap of eight years when the company had started its local assembly in 1994.

Analysts said that while taking a huge gap of years to introduce and make a complete change in the model, the IMC had only made cosmetic changes like introducing new crystal head lights and back lights, front grill etc., in order to fulfill a formality of introducing a new model every year.

It is not clear whether the Toyota Motor Corporation has any worldwide policy of taking a big gap of years to make a complete change in the model or it follows a policy, like in Pakistan, for making only cosmetic changes while launching a new model every year.

The IMC had been adopting the same lethargic attitude in its small car brands of Daihatsu Cuore and there had been no complete model change since its introduction in 2002.

Despite this, the sale and production of Toyota and Daihatsu brands for the year ended June 30, 2008 were 50,802 units and 48,222 units as compared to 50,557 and 47,821 units respectively in the last year.

Sales revenue increased to Rs41 billion during the year under review, up six per cent over Rs39 billion with the after-tax-profit of Rs2.3 billion as compared to Rs2.7 billion in the year ended June 30, 2007. Earnings per share decreased to Rs29.15 as compared to Rs34.93 in the previous year.

The company’s board of directors has declared a final cash dividend of Rs6.5 per share making a total distribution of Rs10.5 per share in 2007-2008. The total dividend paid for the same period last year was Rs13 per share.