Toyota's Nine-Month Profits Quadruple Despite Drop in Third Quarter

Photo Courtesy - Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images(TOKYO) -- Toyota Motor Corporation released its latest financial report Tuesday, announcing its net income -- despite dropping close to 39 percent in the third quarter -- nearly quadrupled in the nine months leading to the end of 2010.

The Japanese automaker said its net income for the nine months leading to Dec. 31, 2010 went up to 382.7 billion yen from last year's total of 97.2 billion yen.

"Strong vehicle sales, especially in emerging markets such as Asia, Central and South America, and Africa, contributed to the increase in operating income in the nine-month period," TMC Senior Managing Director Takahiko Ijichi said.  "These regions are now increasingly representing one of the pillars supporting our earnings."

The increase comes after Toyota reported its net income dropped to 93.6 billion yen in the third quarter from 153.2 billion yen during the same time period the year before.

Forecasting the new fiscal year, Ijichi said, "In addition to an improving vehicle-sales outlook in Japan, Asia and Russia, the progress of our company-wide profit improvement activities, such as further reduction of variable costs and control over fixed costs, has exceeded our earlier expectations.  As a result, we now expect to overcome the rapid and acute yen appreciation and achieve a substantial increase in operating income.  One can therefore see that our earnings are firmly recovering."

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