Profits at Toyota Motor Corp. are expected to plunge by half in the year to March, while annual sales are set to drop for the first time in a decade, reports said Wednesday.
Toyota expects operating profit of about 1.0-1.2 trillion yen (10-12 billion dollars) this business year, down from 2.27 trillion the previous year, the Tokyo Shimbun said without naming its sources.
Toyota had said in August that it expected a 29.5 percent decline in annual operating profit to 1.6 trillion yen.
The company now believes a deeper decline is inevitable as the global financial crisis has hit the auto market and boosted the yen, which is bad for overseas earnings, the daily said.
A Toyota spokeswoman declined to comment. The automaker is due to announce its second-quarter earnings on November 6.
Separate reports said Toyota's global sales are expected to drop two percent in 2008, the first year-on-year decline in a decade.
The fall would be a major setback for Toyota, which has enjoyed meteoric growth in recent years, the Nikkei economic daily said.
Toyota is expected to sell about 8.3 million vehicles this year — excluding affiliates Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd. — down from 8.43 million in 2007, the Nikkei said.
The company in July downgraded its sales estimate for 2008 to 8.5 million from 8.84 million.
Including its affiliates, Toyota's global sales are expected to slip to about 9.3 million vehicles in 2008 from 9.37 million the previous year, falling short of the company's target of 9.5 million, the reports said.
Toyota has enjoyed fast-growing sales and profits in recent years as strong interest in its fuel-efficient vehicles put it on course to overtake General Motors as the world's top-selling automaker.
But it has not been immune to the global economic slowdown and credit crunch, with US sales down 29.5 percent in September.
