Crisis-hit automaker Toyota on Monday said global sales surged 26.3 percent year-on-year in March, despite millions of safety recalls worldwide.
The Toyota group, which includes brands Daihatsu and Hino trucks, said it sold 876,126 vehicles in March, up from 693,759 a year earlier, spokesman Paul Nolasco said.
Also in March, Toyota said global production jumped 82.2 percent to 860,534 units compared to a year ago, when the industry was in the grip of the global economic crisis.
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The beleaguered carmaker has recalled around ten million vehicles worldwide in recent months due to a series of accelerator and brake defects.
In the latest blow, it was downgraded by ratings agency Moody’s over the impact of mass recalls on the company’s future profitability.
Toyota recently widened a recall of two sports utility vehicles — the Lexus GX 460 and some models of the Land Cruiser Prado — to 34,000 units worldwide over stability problems.
Last week the company agreed to pay a 16.4-million-dollar fine, the largest for an automaker in the United States, for hiding for at least four months accelerator pedal defects blamed in more than 50 US deaths.
