Toyota Profit Climbs Amid Improving US Market

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp said Wednesday that its net profit for the three months ending March 31 surged five times compared to a year earlier as the car market picked up in the US.

Toyota reported a net profit of 121 billion yen ($1.5 billion) in the three months ended March up from 25.4 billion yen a year earlier.

For the current fiscal year ending March 2013, the carmaker has forecast a net income of 760 billion yen, up from 283.6 billion yen a year earlier.

However, the full profit slumped 30 percent to 283.5 billion yen compared to last year as the earthquake in Japan and the floods in Thailand had affected the company's production and seriously disrupted supply chains. These interruptions in production hampered the sales with delivery period being increased, resulting in dissatisfied customers.

The company said it has been able to overcome these difficulties to increase sales this year, specifically in the US market and emerging economies like China. In April sales in China climbed 68 percent from a year earlier. Toyota also reported, earlier this month, that sales in the US rose by 11.6 percent in April compared to a year earlier.

At the same time the firm has formulated a strategy to cut costs in all possible areas in order to fight a strong yen, which is detrimental to its exports. Between April 2011 and February 2012, as the yen climbed 10 percent against the US dollar, Toyota struggled to attain growth in overseas sales.

By means of the new cost cutting strategy the company expects to improve the operating margin to 4.5 percent for the current fiscal year compared to 1.9 percent in the previous year. Toyota announced last month a plan to make use of shared components in production that will help it cut development costs by 20 percent.

The shares of Toyota closed unchanged at 3,145 yen prior to the announcement of earnings.