Toyota on cusp of record earnings after years of crisis
February 5, 2014 10:09 am
Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda has put the firm his grandfather established on the road to record profits after years of battling one crisis after another. The shares bolstered the most in seven months.
The carmaker yesterday reported earnings quintupled last quarter and increased its projection for the fiscal year ending March 31 to an unprecedented 1.9 trillion yen ($18.7 billion). Toyota climbed as much as 5.5 percent, the most since June 10, to 5,800 yen as of 9:07 a.m. in Tokyo exchange.
The scion, who has drive the firm back from vehicle recalls and natural disasters, has now positioned Toyota to invest in new technologies and expand production after amassing a cash pile topping $35 billion. In 2013 alone, the world’s biggest automaker earned about as much as what analysts projected to be the combined earnings at the next two largest automakers, Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co.
“Akio Toyoda should be proud of how he has come out of it,” said Ashvin Chotai, managing director of Intelligence Automotive Asia in London. “His credibility has been enhanced now. This will provide him with much greater confidence to take even more decisive actions in the future.”
Abenomics Help
Toyoda’s getting some help from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose monetary-easing policies are weakening the yen, making it more lucrative for the carmaker to export Prius and Lexus vehicles out of Japan.
Toyota’s net income surged to 525.5 billion yen in the three months ended December 31, beating the 434.3 billion yen average of eight analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The shares gained 3.8 percent to 5,711 yen, compared with a 1.5 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average.
The company last month set a target to sell a record 10 million vehicles this year, after leading GM and Volkswagen in global auto deliveries for a second straight year.
“It was good for Toyota to have a president like Akio who is from the founding family right after the hardest time as he could help unite the company,” said Yuuki Sakurai, president of Fukoku Capital Management Inc. “They have been reviewing and streamlining their product lines and factories and have launched vehicle models that are developed for specific emerging markets.”
Cash Pile
Toyota has accumulated cash as it refrained from building new factories to avoid a repeat of over-expansion. The automaker will use its existing plants more efficiently before considering new capacity, Toyota Managing Officer Takuo Sasaki said at a briefing in Tokyo yesterday.
The automaker is closely monitoring the sell-off in emerging markets and will “take actions accordingly,” though it’s difficult to gauge the duration of the instability, Sasaki said, without being more specific.
Before Abe’s election, the Japanese currency hobbled exporters for years, appreciating to a postwar high of 75.35 to the dollar in October 2011, from about 115 in a four-year period. The yen began tumbling in late 2012 as polls showed Abe, who called for unprecedented monetary-easing policies, would lead his Liberal Democratic Party to a win in the nation’s parliamentary elections.
Weaker Yen
The yen last year weakened against every major currency, except for the South African rand, helping boost exporter profits and fueling a 56 percent rally in the Nikkei, the index’s biggest surge since 1972.
The yen’s benefits were most visible in Toyota’s earnings from Japan, the company’s biggest export base. Operating profit from its home country surged 20-fold to 331.3 billion yen.
While the weaker yen became a bigger tailwind for Toyota than other carmakers because of its reliance on Japanese production, the company plans to cut domestic output by 5 percent this year as it projects local demand to shrink by the same magnitude with the increase in the sales tax in April.
Regional Results
In North America, Toyota reaped 112.5 billion yen in operating profit last quarter, versus a loss a year earlier.
U.S. sales of Toyota, Lexus and Scion models rallied 7.4 percent to 2.24 million in 2013, second only to the record set in 2007 in its largest market. This year, Toyota’s U.S. sales will probably increase by 100,000 units, helped by new or updated models including Corolla, RAV4 and Tundra, Jim Lentz, head of Toyota’s U.S. operations, said January 12.
Deliveries got off to a slow start as Toyota’s U.S. sales fell 7.2 percent last month from a year earlier, after the coldest January in 20 years contributed to a drop in deliveries for most Asia-based automakers and the industry.
In China, Toyota had a record year in 2013, boosting deliveries 9.2 percent to 917,500 units after it recovered from the consumer backlash triggered a year earlier by a territorial dispute between Asia’s two largest economies.
Geopolitical Tension
Toyota is expecting sales to exceed 1.1 million units in the country this year, counting on the new Vios and Yaris sedans that are tailored for Chinese consumers to drive demand.
Like other Japanese carmakers, Toyota remains vulnerable to the geopolitical tensions as illustrated by Abe’s recent visit to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which includes World War II soldiers convicted of Class-A war crimes. In 2012, consumers shunned Japanese products over the islands dispute, sending Toyota sales down by 4.9 percent.
In Asian markets outside of Japan, operating profit rose to 110 billion yen.
Thai Unrest
While the end of government incentives sent vehicle deliveries in Thailand, where Toyota is the biggest carmaker, down 32 percent in the October-to-December quarter, carmakers face further headwinds as Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra endures anti-government street protests that have already lasted three months.
Overall demand in Thailand will probably fall 14 percent to 1.15 million units in 2014, Kyoichi Tanada, Toyota’s Thai unit president, said January 20. Toyota’s sales may drop 10 percent, after falling 14 percent in 2013, Tanada said.
Thailand was partly responsible for Honda Motor Co. reporting quarterly net income that missed analysts’ estimate last week. The carmaker cut its forecast for global deliveries by 1 percent for the fiscal year ending March, citing slowing demand in Thailand amid the political turmoil.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company – www.instaforex.com
Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda has put the firm his grandfather established on the road to record profits after years of battling one crisis after another. The shares bolstered the most in seven months.
The carmaker yesterday reported earnings quintupled last quarter and increased its projection for the fiscal year ending March 31 to an unprecedented 1.9 trillion yen ($18.7 billion). Toyota climbed as much as 5.5 percent, the most since June 10, to 5,800 yen as of 9:07 a.m. in Tokyo exchange.
The scion, who has drive the firm back from vehicle recalls and natural disasters, has now positioned Toyota to invest in new technologies and expand production after amassing a cash pile topping $35 billion. In 2013 alone, the world’s biggest automaker earned about as much as what analysts projected to be the combined earnings at the next two largest automakers, Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co.
“Akio Toyoda should be proud of how he has come out of it,” said Ashvin Chotai, managing director of Intelligence Automotive Asia in London. “His credibility has been enhanced now. This will provide him with much greater confidence to take even more decisive actions in the future.”
Abenomics Help
Toyoda’s getting some help from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose monetary-easing policies are weakening the yen, making it more lucrative for the carmaker to export Prius and Lexus vehicles out of Japan.
Toyota’s net income surged to 525.5 billion yen in the three months ended December 31, beating the 434.3 billion yen average of eight analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The shares gained 3.8 percent to 5,711 yen, compared with a 1.5 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average.
The company last month set a target to sell a record 10 million vehicles this year, after leading GM and Volkswagen in global auto deliveries for a second straight year.
“It was good for Toyota to have a president like Akio who is from the founding family right after the hardest time as he could help unite the company,” said Yuuki Sakurai, president of Fukoku Capital Management Inc. “They have been reviewing and streamlining their product lines and factories and have launched vehicle models that are developed for specific emerging markets.”
Cash Pile
Toyota has accumulated cash as it refrained from building new factories to avoid a repeat of over-expansion. The automaker will use its existing plants more efficiently before considering new capacity, Toyota Managing Officer Takuo Sasaki said at a briefing in Tokyo yesterday.
The automaker is closely monitoring the sell-off in emerging markets and will “take actions accordingly,” though it’s difficult to gauge the duration of the instability, Sasaki said, without being more specific.
Before Abe’s election, the Japanese currency hobbled exporters for years, appreciating to a postwar high of 75.35 to the dollar in October 2011, from about 115 in a four-year period. The yen began tumbling in late 2012 as polls showed Abe, who called for unprecedented monetary-easing policies, would lead his Liberal Democratic Party to a win in the nation’s parliamentary elections.
Weaker Yen
The yen last year weakened against every major currency, except for the South African rand, helping boost exporter profits and fueling a 56 percent rally in the Nikkei, the index’s biggest surge since 1972.
The yen’s benefits were most visible in Toyota’s earnings from Japan, the company’s biggest export base. Operating profit from its home country surged 20-fold to 331.3 billion yen.
While the weaker yen became a bigger tailwind for Toyota than other carmakers because of its reliance on Japanese production, the company plans to cut domestic output by 5 percent this year as it projects local demand to shrink by the same magnitude with the increase in the sales tax in April.
Regional Results
In North America, Toyota reaped 112.5 billion yen in operating profit last quarter, versus a loss a year earlier.
U.S. sales of Toyota, Lexus and Scion models rallied 7.4 percent to 2.24 million in 2013, second only to the record set in 2007 in its largest market. This year, Toyota’s U.S. sales will probably increase by 100,000 units, helped by new or updated models including Corolla, RAV4 and Tundra, Jim Lentz, head of Toyota’s U.S. operations, said January 12.
Deliveries got off to a slow start as Toyota’s U.S. sales fell 7.2 percent last month from a year earlier, after the coldest January in 20 years contributed to a drop in deliveries for most Asia-based automakers and the industry.
In China, Toyota had a record year in 2013, boosting deliveries 9.2 percent to 917,500 units after it recovered from the consumer backlash triggered a year earlier by a territorial dispute between Asia’s two largest economies.
Geopolitical Tension
Toyota is expecting sales to exceed 1.1 million units in the country this year, counting on the new Vios and Yaris sedans that are tailored for Chinese consumers to drive demand.
Like other Japanese carmakers, Toyota remains vulnerable to the geopolitical tensions as illustrated by Abe’s recent visit to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which includes World War II soldiers convicted of Class-A war crimes. In 2012, consumers shunned Japanese products over the islands dispute, sending Toyota sales down by 4.9 percent.
In Asian markets outside of Japan, operating profit rose to 110 billion yen.
Thai Unrest
While the end of government incentives sent vehicle deliveries in Thailand, where Toyota is the biggest carmaker, down 32 percent in the October-to-December quarter, carmakers face further headwinds as Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra endures anti-government street protests that have already lasted three months.
Overall demand in Thailand will probably fall 14 percent to 1.15 million units in 2014, Kyoichi Tanada, Toyota’s Thai unit president, said January 20. Toyota’s sales may drop 10 percent, after falling 14 percent in 2013, Tanada said.
Thailand was partly responsible for Honda Motor Co. reporting quarterly net income that missed analysts’ estimate last week. The carmaker cut its forecast for global deliveries by 1 percent for the fiscal year ending March, citing slowing demand in Thailand amid the political turmoil.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company – www.instaforex.com
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