Source: Bloomberg
Toyota Motor Corp. raised its profit forecast 11 per cent as rebounding sales in the US help Japanese carmakers emerge from a year marred by natural disasters.
Net income will be JPY200 billion (US$2.6 billion) in the 12 months ending March 31, versus the JPY180 billion projected in December, Asia’s largest carmaker said in a statement Tuesday. That compares with the JPY285.4 billion average of 20 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The maker of the Camry sedan raised its vehicle sales forecast for the second time in less than a month as it rolls out new versions of the Prius gas-electric hybrid car and Lexus luxury vehicles, joining Honda Motor Co in predicting record deliveries in 2012. Their resurgence signals Co, Volkswagen and Hyundai Motor Co may cede back some of the market share they gained in 2011 at the expense of their Japanese competitors.
“They have many new cars coming, including the Lexus GS series, and they will ramp up production as much as possible,” said Kunihiko Shiohara, a Tokyo-based auto analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG. “Toyota’s new Camry has been leading sales in the US from the end of last year.”
Toyota, which closed unchanged at JPY2,986 in Tokyo trading before the company released its forecasts, also raised its projections for operating profit and sales.
For the third quarter ending 31 December 2011, net income fell 14 per cent to JPY80.9 billion, while revenue increased 4.1 per cent to JPY4.87 trillion, Toyota said.
The return of confidence compares with 2011, when the company was hit by a deadly earthquake and tsunami, floods in the Southeast Asian manufacturing hub of Thailand and a yen that advanced to postwar records.
Toyota’s earnings revisions are also a contrast to consumer-electronics makers struggling to recover. In the past month, Sony Corp more than doubled its annual loss forecast, while Panasonic Corp and Sharp Corp predicted record losses.
The recovery in 2012 – described by Honda President Takanobu Ito as the year of the “complete rebound” – is under way in the US and Japan, Toyota’s two biggest markets. Sales in the US rose 7.5 per cent in January, led by the flagship Camry midsize sedan’s 56 per cent jump, according to Autodata. At home, deliveries of Toyota passenger vehicles rose 46 per cent last month, the biggest gain since April 2010, according to the Japan Automobile Dealers Association.
Toyota may regain market share from GM in the US this year, according to a Bloomberg survey of five analysts. The Japanese carmaker may capture 13.8 per cent of the market this year, compared with 12.9 per cent last year, while GM may drop to 19 per cent from 19.6 per cent last year, according to the survey.
Toyota raised its forecast for sales for the fiscal year to 7.41 million vehicles, compared with the previous projection for 7.38 million. Toyota on February 3 forecast sales, including those of Hino Motors Ltd and Daihatsu Motor Co, from January to December will climb to a record 9.58 million vehicles.
Jim Lentz, head of sales in the US, Toyota’s biggest market, said in Detroit last month that sales of the Prius would climb more than 60 per cent in the country to a record and exceed 220,000 vehicles, fuelled by the new smaller version of the hybrid hatchback.
