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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Mike Benbow, Business Editor benbow@heraldnet.com   Published: Friday, November 6, 2009 Toyota's quarterly profit comes as a surprise Associated Press TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp. reported a surprise profit Thursday and cut its projected red ink for the year by half, adding to growing evidence that carmakers are starting to recover from the deepest industry downturn in years. Although far from a full-fledged turnaround, Toyota’s results showed the healing effects of U.S. government stimulus measures to spur sales of environmentally friendly cars and other vehicles, as well as soaring demand in emerging markets like China. Rivals Honda and Nissan have also issued healthier reports and outlooks recently. For the July-September quarter, Toyota, the world’s largest car company, posted better-than-expected net income of $242 million after three straight losing quarters, defying some expectations of another loss. That marked an 84 percent tumble from company earnings for the same quarter a year ago, but was still one of the clearest signs yet Toyota was rebounding from its biggest loss ever during the last fiscal year. Especially positive were gains in China, where Toyota vehicle sales last quarter surged to a record at more than 204,000 vehicles, up 39 percent from the same period the previous year. China’s auto market is on track to become the world’s biggest, replacing the U.S., this year. With sales proving better than expected the last six months, Toyota upped its sales forecasts for the fiscal year through March 2010, from 7.03 million vehicles from 6.6 million. It also expected a smaller loss for the fiscal year of $2.2 billion — less than half $5 billion loss it predicted earlier. The revised vehicle forecast was still a 7 percent drop from the more than 7.5 million vehicles Toyota, which makes the Prius hybrid and the Corolla subcompact, sold around the world in the last fiscal year. Still, sales were growing in Asia compared to a year ago. Executive Vice President Yoichiro Ichimaru said Toyota made good progress on “emergency” efforts to combat its crisis by cutting costs, while acknowledging that global uncertainties remained. “We continued to make improvements in our reductions in fixed costs,” he said. “In addition, demand-stimulating measures by governments worldwide have contributed to our revised targets.” If Toyota can manage the latest forecast, it would be a major improvement over the 437 billion yen loss it posted during its last fiscal year, the worst performance in the company’s 72-year history. READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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