Toyota’s China car sales were up 12.4% in April compared to the same month last year. Toyota and its two local partners sold 85.800 vehicles. That followed a 19 percent year-on-year rise in March and a 43.1 percent rise in February.

In the first four months of the year, Japan’s biggest automaker sold 313,800 vehicles, up 20.2 percent from a year earlier.

Toyota this year aims to sell more than 1.1 million vehicles in China. If accomplished, the company would meet the objective to sell 1 million vehicles a year in China, which it had originally targeted for 2010.

Toyota’s executive vice president Yasumori Ihara said in Beijing last month that over the longer-term the Japanese automaker aims to double sales in China to about 2 million vehicles a year but gave no time frame for the objective. Last year, Toyota sold 917,500 vehicles in China.

Toyota operates joint ventures in China with First Auto Works and with Guangzhou Automobile.