Net income at Toyota, which analysts say is likely to lose its title as the world’s biggest automaker this year, is expected to fall 54 percent, to 180 billion yen ($2.3 billion) in the fiscal year that ends in March, the automaker said in a statement.
Global sales are likely to fall to 7.38 million vehicles, down from an earlier forecast of 7.6 million, Toyota said.
Those sales numbers are expected to put Toyota behind General Motors, which sold 7.48 million units last year and is on a big recovery push.
The lower profit projections, meanwhile, could put Toyota behind rivals closer to home. Nissan forecasts a 290 billion yen net profit this year, while analysts said that the South Korean automaker Hyundai could earn more than $6 billion this year, according to Bloomberg News. Toyota still produces more cars than any of its Asian rivals, however.
Toyota has been hit especially hard by Thailand’s worst flooding in decades, which has killed more than 600 people, damaged millions of homes and inundated hundreds of factories.
The disaster disrupted production at plants as far away as the United States, causing a net shortfall of 230,000 vehicles, Toyota said — almost four times the number at Nissan. Toyota says waters are now receding and most regions are back to normal output.
The flooding came just as Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers rebounded from the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March, which severed supply chains and caused the company to suspend or reduce production at plants both in Japan and overseas.
A shortage of electricity after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima has also complicated efforts by Toyota to put production back on track.
Meanwhile, a stubbornly strong yen has weighed on Toyota’s bottom line by making production in Japan more costly and by eroding the value of its overseas profits. Toyota still makes more than half of its cars in high-cost Japan, a setup that analysts have warned hurts the automaker’s competitiveness.
Toyota, based in Toyota City, Japan, hopes that its new models will revive its fortunes. At the Tokyo Motor Show, which started last week, the automaker’s chief executive, Akio Toyoda, showed off a plug-in version of its popular Prius gas-electric hybrid vehicle.
Toyota shares, which have fallen 18 percent this year, dipped 0.4 percent in Tokyo before the forecast announcement.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=913184f5c026fb3513f30f74dd179682
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