Rising global sales and the weakness of the local currency, the yen, are benefiting the Japanese car manufacturer Toyota in contrast to. The company more than doubled its operating profit in the past quarter and increased its full-year forecast by 50 percent, the carmaker announced on Wednesday.
From June to September, Toyota earned the equivalent of around nine billion euros (1.44 trillion yen), an increase of 155.6 percent compared to the same period last year, the carmaker announced on Wednesday. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had on average expected an operating profit of 1.08 trillion yen for the past quarter. An operating profit of 4.5 billion yen instead of three billion is now expected for the fiscal year to the end of March. On the Tokyo stock exchange, Toyota shares rose by more than 5 percent.
The company is benefiting from increasing demand. Between January and September, the company sold 7.5 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles – 7 percent more than a year ago. The production in Japan shot up by more than a quarter. Because the yen lost ground against the dollar at the same time, profits in the local currency rose sharply – because Toyota received more yen for the dollars.
Toyota may have benefited from the strike in the USA
Toyota is likely to continue to experience strong demand in the current quarter USA benefit, said Seiji Sugiura from the analysis firm Tokai Tokyo, because the three largest US manufacturers were able to produce fewer vehicles due to the six-week strike by the UAW union. He assumes that Toyota and the other car manufacturers can bring their vehicles onto the market without discounts. “That means a more profitable business.”
As Toyota announced on Tuesday, the company is massively increasing its investments in the battery plant in the US state of North Carolina. The car manufacturer announced additional spending of eight billion dollars and another 3,000 jobs would be created. Toyota is thus increasing its investments to a total of 13.9 billion dollars. The Japanese car manufacturer wants to produce batteries for its electric vehicles at the plant from 2025. This is the company’s first battery factory in the world.