MOTORING NEWS
What a new CEO means for Toyota
Despite a flood of Chinese brands eroding the market share of many legacy European and Asian car companies, Toyota ' s market share in South Africa has grown to nearly 30 %. How will a new Toyota global CEO, influence the brand?
From its humble beginnings as a textileweaving company, Toyota has become the most important global automotive business. Its product durability and relatability across most global markets have made Toyota enormously successful. Unsurprisingly, the most popular model in South Africa for decades has been the Hilux.
In Africa, the Amazon basin, the Middle- East and demandingly isolated parts of Asia, customers choose Toyota. And for all the robust Hiluxes and Land-Cruiser 70s that Toyota sells in Africa, the Middle East, and Australia, there ' s also a huge Toyota luxury SUV and bakkie range that does a significant business in North America. Toyota simply makes excellent margins with low technical debt, in nearly all markets.
Conservative in nature, Toyota avoided incurring the huge electric vehicle investment losses that most legacy cr companies are now suffering. Billions are being written off as the EV demand that legacy car companies had prepared for softens. And Toyota? Despite vicious market criticism over the last few years, that it was an inflexible company due for imminent failure as the market pivoted to EVs, Toyota has masterfully demonstrated that it always knows what customers really want. And its decades of experience in hybrids are now driving enormous sales success.
A money man taking over
The person who needs to sustain Toyota ' s success won ' t be an engineer. It will be a financial specialist. Scion of the Toyoda family, Akio Toyota, has been hugely influential as the company ' s Chairman, and is a dedicated car enthusiast. Traditionally, engineers have been preferred to lead Toyota, but its current CEO, Koji Sato, will be replaced on 1 April by longtime Toyota finance specialist, Kenta Kon( 57).
Toyota ' s always held a strong cash position because it so rarely makes product mistakes, and its pioneering production efficiency sets global standards for lean automotive production. But Toyota realises it needs to go beyond vehicle sales and servicing to ensure its future. And that means competing in the virtual services space with big tech companies, which will be Kon ' s deliverable.
Toyota currently has an under-warranty global vehicle fleet of 150m vehicles. Those are vehicles that still have obligated service and warranty alignment with dealerships and the company. And it creates the potential for a greater digital services opportunity: upselling better specifications, features, and services to existing customers. Things like seasonal seat function( you pay for seat cooling in summer and heating in winter, but not both all the time). Over-the-air diagnostics and service solutions.
Unlike most legacy car companies, Toyota has avoided stranded battery and software investments over the last decade. German OEMs overestimated their product prestige in the Chinese market and have suffered huge market share contraction. The German industry has also struggled to deliver digital services and on-trend UX designs, with
WORDS IN ACTION 28 JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2026