Toyota Motor Corp. is hoping to maintain its hold on the United States' Latino population, as the company is the best-selling auto brand in the demographic.

At a National Council of La Raza (Latino civil rights and advocacy group) conference in Los Angeles Sunday, Bill Fay, Toyota's group vice president for U.S. sales, said that Toyota has been the best-selling car for Latinos for 10 years in a row, Bloomberg reported. He added that the company has about 16 percent of the Latino market.

"The advantage we have is we've been doing it for a while," Fay said in an interview with Bloomberg. "We have some equity with that consumer."

Ford Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., however, are trying to increase their stake in the Latino demographic, Fay said.

"In this market, even 1 percent of auto market share is critical, and Latino buyers are an important group," Alexander Edwards, president of Strategic Vision, a San Diego-based consumer research company, said. "It's a significant chunk of the market, and it's a chunk worth looking at for all manufacturers."

In order to remain top dog, Toyota plans to increase both its marketing and community outreach plans.

"We're trying to cover all our bases and reinforce the strength of the product and involvement in the different communities," Fay said.

Fay cited information from R.L. Polk & Co., an auto registration data service, which reveals that Latinos represent 14 percent of Toyota's 2014 sales thus far.

The Toyota executive expects auto industry sales to rise by up to 5 percent this month and his Japan-based company to "be up in with the market." Toyota predicts selling a minimum of 2.3 million additional vehicles, including cars and trucks, in the U.S. by the end of 2014.

Toyota cars is not the only brand seeing rising sales this year. According to Bloomberg, Toyota and the corporation's Lexus and Scion brand cars saw sales increase 5.1 percent in the first half of 2014 to 1.2 million.

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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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