Toyota’s 3Q profits fall despite solid sales

Toyota’s fiscal thirdquarter profit plunged to $12.6 billion, about a fifth of what it earned the previous year, despite relatively solid sales, the Japanese automaker said Wednesday.

Toyota, Japan’s No. 1 automaker, said profit for the latest quarter was also hurt by unrealized gains and losses in equity securities.

Quarterly sales totaled $71 billion, up nearly 3 percent from the previous year.

Toyota lowered its profit for the fiscal year through March to $17 billion, below its earlier projection of $21 billion.

Toyota shares closed down 2 percent in Wednesday trading.

New York Times on target to meet digital revenue goal

sales by the end of 2020.

More than 3.3 million people pay for the company’s digital products, including its news, crossword and food apps, a 27 percent jump from 2017. The total number of paid subscriptions for digital and print reached 4.3 million, a high.

Online subscription revenue gained nearly 18 percent to reach $400 million in 2018, while digital advertising rose 8.6 percent, to $259 million.

The Times added 265,000 new digital subscribers in the fourth quarter, the biggest jump since the so-called Trump bump after the 2016 election. About 172,000 of those subscribers signed on for the core news product, while the rest were drawn by digital-only products like Crossword and Cooking.

The company hit another revenue milestone: Digital advertising surpassed print advertising for the first time in the fourth quarter, jumping 23 percent to $103 million. Print advertising fell 10 percent, to $88 million.

Tesla cuts price of Model 3 to boost sales

Tesla is cutting $1,100 from the base price of its car designed for the mass market, the Model 3.

The electric car company said on its website that the car starts at $42,900, still a ways from its goal of lowering the base price to $35,000.

Tesla cut 7 percent of its workforce last month to trim costs and reduce the price of the car. CEO Elon Musk said the Model 3 must be competitive with gasoline-fueled cars for the company to succeed.

For $42,900, buyers will get a rear-wheel-drive Model 3 in black with Tesla’s lower-range battery that goes 264 miles per charge.

The price doesn’t include federal and state tax credits. The federal credit is $3,750, but that expires at the end of the year.