Toyota reported an 18% plunge in its fiscal second-quarter profit to $1 billion, and more important, the company said its situation now is too uncertain to give forecasts for its full fiscal year ending in March 2012.
The company said production and sales have taken successive hits from parts shortages caused first by the March tsunami in Japan and now by the flooding in Thailand, which is a major auto parts producing center. Profits also have been squeezed by the powerful rise in the yen.
High yen, Thai floods, Japan tsunami swamp Toyota profits
by Fred Meier
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/11/high-yen-thai-floods-japan-tsunami-swamp-toyota-profits/1#.UFOwnWhkzJw
Toyota reported an 18% plunge in its fiscal second-quarter profit to $1 billion, the Associated Press reported from Tokyo, and more important, the company said its situation now is too uncertain to give forecasts for its full fiscal year ending in March 2012.
The company said production and sales have taken successive hits from parts shortages caused first by the March tsunami in Japan and now by the flooding in Thailand, which is a major auto parts producing center. Profits also have been squeezed by the powerful rise in the yen.
Toyota’s overall sales worldwide in the quarter were down 5% from a year ago to $58.7 billion, according to AP.
Regarding the rise of the yen and fall of the dollar, Toyota President Akio Toyoda said earlier this week that the yen was at levels “far beyond what is tolerable,” threatening to make it necessary to move production out of Japan. He said that unless the dollar rose against the yen, manufacturing in Japan would be “destroyed.”
According to AP, Toyota had counted on a dollar worth 86 yen last year, but now is seeing it at 78 yen. That erased $1 billion from its latest quarterly net income, Toyota said.
Toyota was the world’s biggest automaker in sales last year, but is running No. 3 in 2011, behind General Motors and Volkswagen.
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