Aug 27, 2008 - Toyota Motor Corp.  plans to cut its global vehicle sales projection for 2009 to 9.7 million units from 10.4 million units due to a slump in the North American market, informed sources said Wednesday.

Toyota will announce the new estimate, which also includes sales at two subsidiaries–Hino Motors Ltd. and Daihatsu Motor Co.
The Nagoya-based automaker previously expected the North American market to start recovering in the first half of 2009. But the company now sees that the recovery is unlikely to come at least until the second half of 2009, the sources said.

Toyota alone expects to sell 2.44 million vehicles in the U.S. market next year, nearly flat from this year’s projection.

Toyota’s revised estimate is still 200,000 units higher than this year’s forecast thanks to boosting sales in emerging markets like China.