Biggest automaker’s profit soars 93.6percent – BusinessDay

Toyota Motor Corporation said its net profit soared 93.6 percent in the three months to June and stated that it was on track to produce more than 10 million vehicles worldwide this year. Net profit almost doubled to a record $5.64 billion for the three months to June.

Meanwhile, the world’s biggest automaker has ramped up its bid to tap emerging markets while key US demand has also been on the upswing, helping Toyota to book ever-increasing profits over the last year. The Camry and Corolla maker tripled its net profit in the past fiscal year with a slump in the yen helping Japanese manufacturers’ bottom line.

The yen, which has lost about 20 percent of its value on the dollar since November, has boosted Japanese firms’ competitiveness overseas and jacked up the value of their repatriated foreign income.

However Toyota’s domestic rivals Nissan and Honda posted mixed results in the quarter, with Honda’s earnings slipping 7.0 percent as it hiked spending on a major expansion, while Nissan’s net profit jumped 14 percent in the April-June quarter.

Nissan, Japan’s number-two automaker, said sales in North America soared, but it also warned that demand in China, the world’s biggest car market, tumbled while recession-riddled Europe was also weak. Toyota said its net profit almost doubled to a record $5.64 billion for the three months to June, and said it was on track to produce over 10 million vehicles worldwide this year.

But North America helped make up the shortfall along with strong demand in emerging markets in Central and South America as well as Africa, it added.

Profit also increased due to the impact of foreign exchange rates and our global efforts for profit improvement, through cost reduction activities. Looking forward, Toyota said it expected to pump out a record 10.12 million vehicles this calendar year, after it overtook General Motors in 2012 to regain the title of world’s biggest automaker.

Although, the automaker did not specifically address China, sales in the country were dented in the wake of a flare-up in a territorial dispute between Tokyo and Beijing last year which sparked a consumer boycott of Japanese brands in China.

Toyota said it expects a net profit of 1.48 trillion yen for the fiscal year to March on sales of 24 trillion yen. That was up from an earlier forecast of a 1.37 trillion yen profit on sales of 23.5 trillion yen.