Toyota surprises with profit, boosts forecast

YURI KAGEYAMA Comments 0
Published: November 5, 2009

TOKYO (AP) — Toyota said Thursday it returned to a profit in the latest quarter as government incenstives boosted sales, leading the world's largest automaker to trim its projected red ink for the year.

Toyota Motor Corp. reported a 21.8 billion yen ($242 million) profit for the July-September period after three straight quarterly losses.

That marked an 84 percent plunge from the 139.8 billion profit racked up the same period a year ago, but underlined a gradual recovery for Toyota, which sank to its worst loss for the fiscal year ended March 31.

The news marked the latest in a series of recoveries for Japanese automakers, including Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., which have both recently reported healthier earnings after taking a battering from the global economic crisis.

Toyota said it now expects to sell more vehicles for the fiscal year through March 2010, raising its projections to 7.03 million vehicles from 6.6 million.

The company, which makes the Prius hybrid and the Corolla subcompact, said sales in the last six months were proving better than earlier expectations as government stimulus measures around the world spur sales.

As a result, the company forecasts a smaller loss for the fiscal year of 200 billion yen ($2.2 billion) — much better than the 450 billion yen ($5 billion) of red ink it had predicted earlier.