Toyota says full-year net profit triples to US$9.7 bln

TOKYO: Toyota yesterday said its full-year net profit more than tripled to US$ 9.7 billion, with the world’s largest automaker also saying it was on track for another soaring profit in the current fiscal year.

The Japanese giant earned 962.1 billion yen (US$ 9.7 billion) in the business year to March, up from 283.5 billion yen a year earlier, on sales of 22 trillion yen, an increase of 18.7 per cent year on year.

Toyota added that it expected to earn a net profit of 1.37 trillion yen for the fiscal year ending March 2014, underscoring a recovery among the nation’s major automakers after Japan’s quake-tsunami disaster in 2011 devastated sales and production, and highlighted strong demand in the key Asian and US markets.

The automaker also credited its rosy results to factors including cost- cutting and the declining value of the yen which helped make major exporters such as Toyota more competitive overseas.

It also boosts the value of repatriated foreign income, inflating firms’ bottom line.

“We experienced increased sales of our vehicles mainly in North America and Asia,” Toyota president Akio Toyoda said, also pointing to “companywide profit improvement activities”.

Worldwide vehicle sales hit 8.87 million units in the year to March, Toyota said. — AFP