Toyota books $3.6 billion Q2 net profit

• Source: Xinhua
• [08:52 November 08 2010]
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Toyota Motor Corp. said Friday it posted a net profit of 289.16 billion yen ($3.6 billion) or the April to September period.

The world's largest automaker said it recovered from 55.9 billion yen ($692 million ) losses booked during the same period of the previous year, citing solid global sales and cost cuts.

Toyota saw an operating profit of 323.1 billion yen ($4 billion), compared with the 136.8 billion yen ($1.7 billion) loss seen a year earlier, with sales increasing 16 percent on the year, totaling 9.68 trillion yen (119.8 billion U.S. dollars) in the first six month of the current business year.

The automaker upwardly revised its earnings outlook for the year through March 2011, forecasting a 160 percent rise in operating profit to 380 billion yen ($4.7 billion), from a previously forecast 330 billion yen.

In addition, Toyota raised its full-year global sales projection to 7.41 million units from its previous projection of 7. 38 million units, whilst predicting its net profit will rise 67 percent to 350 billion yen ($4.33 billion ), some 10 billion yen higher than its earlier estimate.

Toyota, whose Prius hybrid sedan remained Japan's top-selling car for the 17th successive month in October, said the pace of sales will likely slow on the year to 19 trillion yen ($235 billion), down 500 billion yen from its previous estimate.

The firm reliant on a large percentage of its profits from overseas, revised its foreign exchange assumption to 82 yen to the dollar for the second half of fiscal 2010 from 90 yen, as a response to the recent strength of the Japanese yen and as a means to parry further currency moves.