Toyota lifts full-year profit on yen

TOKYO (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp. on Tuesday reaped its price for full-year operating profit by 4.3 percent as it expects a boost from a weaker yen, after continuing sales growth in Asia and Europe lifted profit in the July-September quarter.

Japan's top automaker expects full-year profit to come in at 2.4 trillion yen ($ 21.18 trillion), from a previous forecast of 2.3 trillion yen, based on a revised assumption that will average around 110 yen to the US dollar through March.

The increase is largely flat profit in the year to March versus last year.

Profit was 579.1 trillion yen for the July-September period, up 11 percent for Toyota's strongest second-quarter performance since the September 2015 quarter, though it undershot a median forecast of 584.89 trillion yen from 10 analysts polled by Refinitiv.

Earnings were higher in China, while profitability in North America improved.

The results indicate that Toyota is managing to avoid a global market share of the world's largest auto market, as well as a broader economic growth slows.

During the July-September quarter, it posted a 20 percent jump in sales in China, which helped to boost overall sales in Asia by 9.2 percent to 417,000 units during the period.

Last week, Honda Motor Co Ltd reported a slowdown in vehicle sales in China, while the Ford Motor Co. in late October posted a slide in third-quarter profit in a slump in the country.

Toyota and its domestic rivals are facing the possibility of increasing investment in North America, as Japan's auto industry considers ways to increase localised production following the agreement on an updated trade pact between the United States, Canada and Mexico in September.

The industry is also bracing for higher U.S. tariffs on imports from Japan, which could deliver a negative hit to Toyota, as well as its one-third of all the vehicles it sells in the United States, its biggest market, from Japan.

Toyota's sales in North America eased to 665,000 units, while they rose 4.8 percent in Europe, resulting in a 1.9 percent rise in sales globally.

(Click here for an interactive graph on Japanese Automakers' annual global vehicle sales tmsnrt.rs/2RnFOr2)

($ 1 = 113,3400 yen)