reported its first quarterly loss in two years on Tuesday as Japan’s biggest earthquake on record hammered production and the yen’s rise hit profits on exports. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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The automaker made a global operating loss of 108 billion yen ($1.4 billion) in the April-June quarter, compared to a 211.7 billion yen profit a year earlier.
In Europe, the automaker reported that its operating loss grew 700 million yen to 7.5 billion yen. Toyota said unit sales in its European markets fell by 13,000 to 174,000 in the period.
In North America, Toyota’s operating income fell by 80.8 billion yen to 28.9 billion yen, while in Japan, the operating loss from the automaker’s Japanese operations increased by 179.1 billion yen, to 206.6 billion yen.
The global result was better than the average loss estimate of 190 billion yen in a survey of six analysts by Thomson Reuters.
Toyota posted an overall global net profit of 1.2 billion yen compared to a 190.5 billion yen net profit the previous year. Worldwide revenue fell 29.4 percent to 3.44 trillion yen.
For the full year to March 2012, Toyota raised its global forecast for operating profit, which excludes earnings from China, to 450 billion yen. A poll of 20 analysts produced a forecast of 529.7 billion yen.
“It is a relief to see that their production is returning to normal. They (Toyota) have raised their earnings forecasts. However, looking at the share price and PE, the profits are still too low. The share price won’t rise until profits come back a bit more,” Koji Toda chief fund manager, Resona Bank, said Tuesday.
