Toyota Motor Projects Drop in Fiscal-Year Profit, Announces Share Buyback

By Kosaku Narioka

Toyota Motor projected a drop in fiscal-year profit and announced a share buyback after posting a rise in fourth-quarter net profit thanks partly to a weaker yen.

The Japanese carmaker said Wednesday that net profit increased 80% from a year earlier to 997.6 billion yen ($6.45 billion) for the three months ended March 31. That beat the estimate of Y752.85 billion in a poll of analysts by data provider FactSet.

Fourth-quarter revenue grew 14% from a year earlier to Y11.073 trillion due partly to a weaker yen and strong sales growth in North America and Europe.

A weaker yen lifts earnings for Japanese carmakers as it makes exports more competitive abroad and boosts the value of profits earned overseas in yen terms.

Toyota is also benefiting from a shift among consumers in the U.S. and some other markets to gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles from fully electric vehicles as more car buyers, worried about charging problems and higher prices, are choosing hybrids as a fuel-efficient option.

For the fiscal year started April, it projected that net profit would drop 28% to Y3.570 trillion and revenue would increase 2.0% to Y46.000 trillion.

Toyota also projected that group vehicle sales will fall to 10.95 million units from the 11.09 million units it sold the previous fiscal year.

The company said it would buy back up to Y1 trillion worth of its own shares by the end of April 2025.

Write to Kosaku Narioka at kosaku.narioka@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 08, 2024 01:40 ET (05:40 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.