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Toyota China car sales weak in first quarter

A man walks past Toyota Motor's logo at the company's showroom in Tokyo November 5, 2014. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

(Reuters) - Sales of automobiles in China by Toyota Motor Corp and its two Chinese joint ventures fell 20.9 percent in March, while those for the first three months of the year slipped 0.1 percent.

The results, announced by Toyota on Wednesday, amounted to what a company spokesman called a surprisingly weak showing by Japan's top automaker in the world's biggest auto market.

Takanori Yokoi, a Beijing-based Toyota spokesman, said the newly redesigned Corolla and Levin models sold well during March, but sales of both the RAV4 crossover SUV and the Vios compact car were particularly disappointing.

Yokoi blamed the big year-on-year slide in March sales mostly on the fierce competition those two car models faced in China. He cited, for example, dealers discounting competitive cars such as the Honda CR-V crossover, creating competition for the Toyota RAV4 and eating into its sales.

Toyota and its Chinese joint ventures sold about 71,500 vehicles in China in March. Its volume during the January-March quarter totalled about 227,700 vehicles.

Toyota aims to sell 1.1 million vehicles in China in 2015, after failing to clear that sales level and meet last year's target. That means its expected pace of growth in China would almost halve this year, to 6.8 percent.

Japan's top carmaker sold about 1.03 million vehicles in China last year, up 12.5 percent from 2013.

Yokoi said on Wednesday the company was still on track to achieve its China sales objective for 2015.

Toyota operates joint ventures in China with China FAW Group Corp and Guangzhou Automobile Group .

(Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu and Jake Spring; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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