Toyota reports 8% drop in Oct-Dec profit, keeps forecast

TOKYO (AP) — Toyota reported a 8.1% drop in fiscal third quarter profit Thursday, as a global shortage of computer chips and soaring raw material costs battering the auto industry hit Japan’s top automaker.

Toyota Motor Corp.’s October-December profit totaled 727.9 billion yen ($5.6 billion), down from 791.7 billion yen the previous year.

The company said it was doing its best to find other chips suppliers to keep up with demand. Higher material and energy costs slashed profitability, it said.

Toyota kept its global consolidated vehicles sales forecast for the fiscal year that ends in March unchanged at 10.4 million vehicles. That would be little changed from what it sold in the previous fiscal year, at 10.38 million vehicles.

It expects to sell more Toyota and Lexus vehicles in Japan, but sell less in the U.S. and the rest of Asia, it said.

Quarterly sales rose 25% to 9.75 trillion yen ($74 billion).

Toyota said although its operating income in Japan got a boost from currency fluctuations recently, in which the Japanese yen has dropped against other currencies, that hurt its profits in the U.S. and Europe.

A weak yen lifts the earnings of Japanese exporters like Toyota by boosting the value of their overseas earnings when converted into yen. The U.S. dollar was trading at about 115 yen a year ago but is now at nearly 130 yen.

Toyota expects to earn 2.36 trillion yen ($18 billion) in profit for the full fiscal year, unchanged from its earlier forecast. That’s lower than its year-ago annual profit of 2.85 trillion yen.

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