Profits at Toyota Motor Corp are expected to plunge by half in the year to March, while annual sales are set to drop for the first time in a decade, reports said yesterday.
Toyota expects an operating profit of about ¥1 trillion to ¥1.2 trillion (US$10 billion to US$12 billion) this business year, down from ¥2.27 trillion the previous year, the Tokyo Shimbun said without naming its sources.
Toyota had said in August that it expected a 29.5 percent decline in annual operating profit to ¥1.6 trillion.
The company now believes a deeper decline is inevitable as the global financial crisis has hit the auto market and boosted the yen, which is bad for overseas earnings, the daily said.
A Toyota spokeswoman declined to comment.
Separate reports said Toyota’s global sales are expected to drop 2 percent this year, the first year-on-year decline in a decade.
The fall would be a major setback for Toyota, which has enjoyed meteoric growth in recent years, the Nikkei Shimbun said.
Toyota is expected to sell about 8.3 million vehicles this year — excluding affiliates Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors Ltd — down from 8.43 million last year, the Nikkei said.
The company in July downgraded its sales estimate for next year to 8.5 million from 8.84 million.
Including its affiliates, Toyota’s global sales are expected to slip to about 9.3 million vehicles this year from 9.37 million the previous year, falling short of the company’s target of 9.5 million, the reports said.
Mitsubishi Motors Corp, meanwhile, raised its profit forecast yesterday for the first half, saying that despite falling sales the yen was not as strong as it had feared.
Mitsubishi — for years the unprofitable exception among Japan’s automakers — said it expected net profit of ¥12.5 billion in the six months to last month.
Japan’s fourth-largest carmaker earlier predicted just to break even for the first half. It will release its earnings next Thursday.
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