To say the last year or so has been a bit rough for Toyota Motor Company would be quite an understatement, as the automaker first battled unintended acceleration-related recalls in the millions only to be hit with an earthquake and tsunami in Japan just as things appeared to be turning around.
Now, the true financial impact of some of those events has been revealed in a concrete form as Toyota has released its financial report for its first quarter of the fiscal 2011 year ending June 30th.
While many analysts had predicted even wider losses, Toyota says that it managed to stem losses to about $1.4 billion (U.S.) for the quarter for its operating income, with net income dipping from $2.45 billion profit one year ago to just $14 million net income.
Total revenues were down 29.4 percent from compared to levels from one year ago while vehicle unit sales were down nearly 33 percent. Toyota says that the major factors driving the losses were the tsunami and miscalculations on the strength of the yen compared to the dollar.
“In Japan and North America where the effects of the earthquake were particularly serious, vehicle sales declined substantially. In the Asia region, despite the impact of the earthquake, we were able to maintain a similar level of vehicle sales as the previous year in countries led by Indonesia,” said Takahiko Ijichi, TMC senior managing officer.
Despite the beating Toyota took in Q1, the automaker is already on track to better its earlier projections of 7,240,000 to 7,600,000 million units for the full fiscal year ending March 31, 2012 – marking an increase of 360,000 vehicles compared to forecasts announced in June 2011.
In regards to financials, Toyota also updated its expected numbers to show a net income of $5 billion for the fiscal year 2012. Toyota intends to drive profitability through continued cost-cutting efforts, regardless of currency strength issues stemming from the weak dollar and strong yen.
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