Toyota Tsusho Corporation ("Toyota Tsusho") announced today that it has invested in TOYOTA Connected Middle East FZCO ("TCME")--a company which undertakes business in connected services for mobility in the Middle East region--through receipt of allocated third party shares. Toyota Tsusho has acquired 51% of TCME's shares with an additional investment of approximately 250 million JPY. At the same time, TCME has changed its name to Toyota Tsusho Connected Middle East FZCO on February 1st.

In the mobility domain, the market for services is expanding and needs are diversifying. As such, the importance of establishing infrastructure and developing businesses necessary for connected services supporting such expansion and diversification is increasing globally. At the same time, in the deployment of connected services for ride sharing and logistics service providers, it is necessary to develop systems and design services that both reflect the circumstances and needs of each region and service provider while collaborating with local operators.

In the Middle East region, Toyota Tsusho has more than 10 years of achievements in developing projects for products and services reflecting local needs such as remote air conditioning control and car infotainment systems capable of connected services (including Google POI^*1 search function). Its partner, TOYOTA Connected, jointly established TCME with Toyota Tsusho in 2013. Since then, TOYOTA Connected has been providing connected services and carrying out customer management and operation support in the Middle East region. This time, an additional investment was made in TCME to further grow the collaboration that utilizes TOYOTA Connected’s system development and operation expertise and Toyota Tsusho’s local sales system and sales expertise.

Going forward, in addition to providing services for individuals, services targeting company-owned vehicles and vehicles of logistics and ride sharing service providers (including fleet management^*2) will be enhanced. In addition, there are also plans to develop new services for automotive distributors as well as ride sharing and logistics service providers in the Middle East region through collaborating with Toyota Tsusho Mobility Informatics Pte. Ltd., the connected service R&D base established in Singapore in January 2020.

*1 Google POI, which stands for point of interest, is a function of the Google Maps platform for displaying icons and explanations about major locations.

*2 Fleet management is an administrative approach that allows companies to organize and coordinate commercial vehicles in order to increase productivity and help a business operation as smoothly as possible.