Arab Times

Toyota profit drops on virus outbreak

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Toyota Motor Corp. reported Tuesday a sharp plunge in fiscal fourth quarter profit as the global pandemic slammed vehicle sales and halted production at its auto plants.

Japan’s top automaker logged a net profit of 63.1 billion yen ($590 million) for the quarter ended in March, nosediving 86% from 459.5 billion yen for the same period the year before.

Quarterly sales slipped 8% to 7.1 trillion yen ($66 billion) from 7.8 trillion yen a year ago.

President Akio Toyoda said the company is facing its biggest crisis since the global financial crisis, stressing how hard it had been just to report financial results.

But he said Toyota was learning to grow leaner and make a fresh start.

Toyota is striving to be reliable and needed by the world, he said. Toyoda promised to protect jobs and what he called “Toyota people,” the workers around the world, not just in Japan, with their skills and shared sense of mission.

Damage from COVID-19 cost Toyota 145 billion yen ($1.4 billion) in operating profit for the latest quarter, offsetting cost cuts, the company said. Toyota officials said it was difficult to project the future, given the varying degrees of lockdowns around the world and uncertaint­ies on how the coronaviru­s outbreak may develop.

The company did not give a net profit forecast for the fiscal year through March 2021, but acknowledg­ed operating profit was expected to fall by a whopping 80%.

 ??  ?? In this file photo, a boy looks up at the logo of Toyota Motor Corp. at its
gallery in Tokyo. (AP)
In this file photo, a boy looks up at the logo of Toyota Motor Corp. at its gallery in Tokyo. (AP)

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