AFP - Friday, August
3
Toyota reports
record first-quarter profits
TOKYO (AFP) - - Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. said Friday fast-growing
sales of fuel efficient vehicles and a weaker yen lifted its
profits up 32 percent to a record high in the fiscal first
quarter.
But Toyota, which is battling US rival General Motors for the title
of the world's top selling automaker, maintained its cautious
outlook for the full-year, predicting roughly stable
earnings.
Net earnings came to 491.54 billion yen (4.12 billion dollars) in
the three months to June, up 32.3 percent from a year earlier, a
company statement said.
Operating profit jumped 31.8 percent to 675.43 billion yen as
revenue increased by 15.7 percent to 6.52 trillion yen.
"We posted substantial increases in both revenues and profits, our
highest ever quarterly results," Toyota senior managing director
Takeshi Suzuki said in the statement.
"Operating income showed a steep increase ... due to improved
marketing efforts, including higher sales volume and improvement in
the product mix, and cost reduction efforts which offset higher raw
material costs," he added.
The weak yen gave the automaker a significant boost, adding 100
billion yen to its operating profits, it said.
Toyota kept its forecast for net profit to rise 0.4 percent to 1.65
trillion yen in the full fiscal year to March as revenue grows 4.4
percent to 25.00 trillion yen -- an outlook analysts believe will
prove overly cautious.
Toyota has been enjoying strong sales, particularly in the United
States, as sky-high prices at the pump boost demand for compact
cars, small sport utility vehicles and hybrids which use a mix of
electricity and petrol.
Toyota, which marks the 70th anniversary of its founding this year,
overtook struggling US rival General Motors as the world's top
selling automaker in the first quarter of 2007.
GM turned the tables again by outselling Toyota in the second
quarter, but many analysts expect the Japanese giant to come out on
top at the end of the year, ending the Detroit giant's more than
seven-decade reign.
Toyota's global sales increased by 71,000 vehicles in the first
quarter from a year earlier to 2.16 million.
Sales rose by 15,000 vehicles to 762,000 in North America, helped
by the launch of new models such as the Tundra and the Lexus LS,
and strong sales of fuel efficient vehicles like the Prius
hybrid.
But conditions remained tough in the Japanese market, where sales
fell by 43,000 vehicles 500,000.