(Yicai) Nov. 29 -- FAW Toyota Motor is restructuring its sales system to address increasingly stiff competition in the Chinese auto market, and plans to relocate its sales headquarters as part of that effort, according to an insider at the joint venture of FAW Group and Japan’s Toyota Motor.

FAW Toyota Motor Sales will be moved to Tianjin from Beijing by the middle of next year, the source at the Tianjin-based JV told Yicai. The shake-up will not affect production or the scheduled release of new models, the person noted, adding that Tokyo-based Toyota still regards China as a key market and has no intention of cutting output capacity in the country.

FAW Toyota, which has factories in the cities of Changchun, Chengdu, and Tianjin, has not yet commented on the matter. Its sales arm has branches in those cities as well as Guangzhou and Shanghai.

FAW Toyota Sales has a sales target of 800,000 vehicles for this year, General Manager Dong Xiuhui said earlier. It is unlikely to achieve that, as the JV carmaker sold only 611,500 in the first 10 months of the year.

Japanese producers were once the main players in China’s auto market, the world’s largest, but their sales and market share have dwindled due to the explosive growth of domestic new energy vehicle brands. While Chinese firms dominate the NEV market with cutting-edge technology and competitive pricing, Japanese brands have been slower to pivot from internal combustion engines to NEVs.

FAW Toyota’s sales fell 6.2 percent in the 10 months ended Oct. 31 from a year earlier, while its market share sank to 13.9 percent from 24.1 percent in the same period of 2020, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione