LEAD: Toyota posts drop in quarterly profits, raises year forecast

Feb 7, 2012, 7:56 GMT

Tokyo - Toyota Motor Corp said Tuesday that its net profit declined 13.5 per cent for the October-December quarter from a year earlier, amid a rising yen and falling sales in Asia in 2011.

But the carmaker increased its forecast for the financial year to the end of March, as its production chain recovered from last year's natural disasters, and sales in the United States showed some growth.

Toyota booked a net profit of 80.9 billion yen (1.05 billion dollars) for the latest quarter, down from 93.6 billion yen in the same period of 2010.

The company also posted an operating profit of 149.7 billion yen for the quarter, compared with 99.1 billion yen a year ago, while sales were up 4.1 per cent to 4.87 trillion yen from 4.67 trillion yen.

By unit, sales in Asia fell 16.7 per cent to 279,000 vehicles for the quarter while those in North America, Toyota's biggest market, climbed 14.2 per cent to 579,000.

The floods in Thailand in late 2011 affected suppliers of Toyota's car parts, causing the carmaker to halt production at its several factories in the country. It was also forced to cut production at home and in other countries.

The output cuts came just as Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers were recovering from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which ravaged north-eastern Japan.

Toyota was also hurt by the yen's appreciation, which makes Japanese exports more expensive overseas and erodes revenues when they are repatriated.

Toyota now expects a net profit for the current financial year to the end of March of 200 billion yen, up from 180 billion yen it had forecast in early December, but less than half of the 468.2 billion yen in net profit for the year to the end of March 2011.

The carmaker also predicted an operating profit of 270 billion yen, up from 200 billion yen forecast two months ago while sales were projected at 18.3 trillion yen, up slightly from the earlier 18.2-trillion-yen prediction. Sales in the previous financial year were 19 trillion yen.

Toyota expected to sell 7.41 million vehicles worldwide for the year, up slightly from 7.38 million units predicated two months ago. The carmaker sold 7.31 million vehicles for the financial year to March 2011.

Shares in Toyota closed unchanged at 2,986 yen on Tuesday.

Read more about Toyota