Japan's Toyota Motor Corp said Tuesday that its third-quarter net profit rose 7.5 percent to a record high on the back of fast-growing sales overseas, particularly in emerging markets.
But Toyota, which is in a tight race with Detroit giant General Motors for the rank of the world's top automaker, maintained its cautious outlook for the full-year amid a drop in sales in North America.
Net profit came to 458.67 billion yen (4.29 billion dollars) in the three months to December, a company statement said. Operating profit increased 4.7 percent to 601.56 billion yen, roughly in line with analysts' forecasts. Revenue grew 9.2 percent to 6.71 trillion yen. Global vehicle sales rose by 5.8 percent to 2.28 million vehicles. Toyota posted record third-quarter revenue and profits despite a "severe business environment," Toyota senior managing director Takeshi Suzuki said.
Toyota has expanded aggressively outside of Japan, helped by its reputation for fuel efficient vehicles, including petrol-electric hybrids, which have generated strong interest at a time of soaring oil prices.
With the US economy losing steam, Toyota and its rivals are now relying increasingly on emerging economies such as China and Russia to underpin their rapid expansion. Toyota's performance in North America has suffered amid high oil prices and fears of a recession due to a housing slump and a wave of defaults on subprime, or risky, mortgages. Toyota left unchanged its outlook for the year to March.
It expects a 3.4 percent rise in net profit to 1.70 trillion yen, a 2.7 percent rise in operating profit to 2.30 trillion yen and a 6.5 percent gain in revenue to 25.5 trillion yen. Toyota's third-quarter operating profit in North America dropped 36 percent from a year earlier to 63.6 billion yen, although the company said the fall was largely the result of losses on interest rate swaps.
Sales in North America declined by 1.0 percent to 756,145 vehicles, making it the only other region besides Japan to show a fall. At the same time, sales in Asia outside of Japan surged by more than 18 percent to 241,378 vehicles, helped by strong demand in China. Toyota also saw sales in other markets, which include the Middle East, South Africa and Australia, rise almost 28 percent to 434,271.