Toyota quarterly profit triples, raises forecast
TOKYO, Japan (AP) — Toyota’s quarterly profit tripled, driven by a recovery from natural disasters, and the company raised its full-year earnings forecast Monday despite a sales slump in China.
Toyota Motor, on track to regain the crown of world’s bumber one automaker this year, reported a July-September net profit of 257.9 billion yen (US$3.2 billion) compared with an 80.4 billion profit a year earlier. The result was better than the 238 billion yen (US$3 billion) quarterly profit forecast by analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Japan’s top automaker raised its profit forecast for the full fiscal year through March 2013 to 780 billion yen (US$9.8 billion) from 760 billion yen (US$9.5 billion).
It had a profit of 283.5 billion yen the previous fiscal year when Toyota’s car production was hammered by the tsunami disaster in northeastern Japan and flooding in Thailand.
The company’s optimism comes despite a sales plunge in China, where a territorial dispute over islands has set off protests and a boycott of Japanese cars in recent months.
Quarterly sales improved 18 per cent to 5.4 trillion yen (US$67.6 billion) as the demand for Toyota vehicles picked up across all major regions, including North America, Europe, Japan and Asian nations other than China.
Executive Vice President Satoshi Ozawa said Toyota had recovered from last year’s disaster-related parts shortages and was able to boost profits despite the disadvantage of a strong yen. A strong yen erodes the value of overseas earnings of Japanese exporters such as Toyota.
“We have revised the forecast we announced at the end of the first quarter to reflect the progress we have been making,” Ozawa said.
For the fiscal second quarter, Toyota, which makes the Camry sedan, Prius hybrid and Lexus luxury models, sold 2.2 million vehicles around the world, up from 1.8 million the same period the previous year.
It now expects to sell 8.75 million vehicles for the full business year through March 2013, up by more than a million vehicles compared to the 7.35 million vehicles sold the previous year.
