Toyota reports record $6.9 billion profit

Its quarterly sales increased by 8.4% to 7.1tn yen, thanks to a weaker yen.

The world’s top-selling automaker maintained its full-year profit forecast at a record 2.25 trillion yen ($18.5 billion) – a 3.5 percent increase over the past year – and annual revenue outlook of 27.5 trillion yen ($225.6 billion) – an yearly increase of 1 percent. Through September this year, Toyota has sold 7.49 million vehicles and with this, it has taken over Volkswagen’s count of 7.43 million. The profit was up from 539 billion yen the previous year, but a little short of the 615 billion yen ($5.1 billion) average forecast in a FactSet survey of analysts.

Part of that increase was due to the exchange-rate effect on sales of cars built in Japan and exported to the USA, and part of it was attributable to those cost-cutting efforts at Toyota’s headquarters.

“That’s the way any company should be, being flexible in buying back its own shares when the price is going down”, Takashi Aoki, a fund manager at Mizuho Asset Management Co., said of Toyota, whose shares fell 15 percent in the three months through September.

However, Toyota sold slightly fewer cars globally at 4.98 million units and trimmed its full fiscal year sales target.

The Japanese minicar market remains sluggish, Tetsuya Otake, a Toyota managing officer, said on Thursday.

As Volkswagen battles through its scandal, Toyota will be looking to pull off a smooth introduction of its first redesigned Prius in nearly seven years. Toyota says the new model will boast an improvement in United States fuel economy with an Eco version able to deliver an even bigger boost.

It will also offer driver-assist technologies such as automatic braking.

Profits are expected to remain intact as the company plans to offset the drooping sales with cost cuts.

In Japan, vehicle sales totaled 984,397 units, a decrease of 45,832 units.

Still, despite the lowered expectations for wholesale volumes, Toyota’s forecasts for operating profit and net income were unchanged.

In Thailand, the automaker’s sales declined 7 per cent in the second quarter, while in Indonesia sales plummeted 26 percent in the same period.

Weakening sales in the quarter forced Toyota to cut its sales guidance for the year, from 10.15m vehicles to 10m vehicles.

Rising deliveries of RAV4 and Highlander SUVs and the Tacoma pickup led to a 19 per cent jump in the company’s USA light truck sales in October.