Toyota more than doubles quarterly profit, raises annual forecast

Toyota reported a more than doubling of second-quarter profit on Wednesday, helped by a weak yen and strong sales, and raised its full-year forecast by 50%.

The world's top-selling carmaker said operating profit for the three months to the end of September rose 155.6% from a year earlier to ¥1.44-trillion (R177.8bn)

The Japanese carmaker said it sold more cars in all global regions, including the US , Asia and its home market, over the six months to end-September compared to the same period a year earlier.

Toyota lifted its full-year profit forecast to ¥4.5-trillion from ¥3-trillion , largely due to favourable effects from foreign exchange rates. It expects the weaker yen to account for ¥1.18-trillion of the revision to the full-year profit.

It said a further boost from cost reduction and marketing efforts and price revisions especially outside Japan was likely to offset higher expected expenses.

The new projection compared to analysts' average forecast of ¥4-trillion .

The quarterly results compared to an average ¥1.08-trillion profit estimate in a poll of 10 analysts by LSEG and a profit of ¥562.8bnin the same period last year.

Toyota shares, which were up 4.4% just before the release of the earnings, jumped immediately after and were up 5.6% at 2,735 yen by 0516 GMT.

Toyota unveiled in June a sweeping revamp of its battery-powered vehicle strategy and committed to technologies to improve the driving range and cut costs of electric vehicles.

It said overnight it would boost investment by $8bn (R149.3bn) in a North Carolina plant that will make batteries for hybrids, plug-in hybrids and full-battery vehicles.

In the first nine months of the year it sold 7.5-million cars, which included the Lexus luxury brand, nearly a third of them hybrids. It sold about 76,000 battery EVs, or about 1% of total sales, during the same period.

While Toyota has avoided the kind of hit other Japanese carmakers such as Nissan and Honda have taken in China from a shift to EVs and the rise of domestic brands, Toyota still faces pressure in the world's biggest auto market.

It also faces a battle in Southeast Asian markets such as Thailand due to rising Chinese investments, fuelled by higher demand for EVs.