Toyota annual net profit jumps 10.3pc

TOKYO: Toyota’s full-year net profit jumped 10.3 percent even as the pandemic hit the auto industry, the Japanese firm said Wednesday, projecting growth despite the ongoing semiconductor crisis.

The global pandemic has hit automakers hard, with demand collapsing as the coronavirus forced people indoors and hit spending.

But the world’s top-selling carmaker has bounced back quicker than its competitors, and has also successfully weathered a chip shortage that has forced rivals to slash production targets.

“Even though sales declined in the first half of the year due to the impact of the coronavirus, in the latter half of the year we saw a rise in sales in many regions,” chief financial officer Kenta Kon told reporters.

Toyota said it generated 2.25 trillion yen ($20.6 billion) in the fiscal year to March, up from 2.04 trillion yen the year before, beating its own annual forecast.

For the year to March 2022, it now projects an annual net profit of 2.3 trillion yen, up 2.4 percent.

Toyota reclaimed the title of world top-selling automaker last year, selling 9.53 million vehicles around the world, overtaking the 9.3 million sold by German rival Volkswagen.

The last time Toyota held the top spot was in 2015, with VW edging it out in the following years.

“Toyota’s performance was outstanding, compared with its rivals,” Satoru Takada, auto analyst at Tokyo-based research and consulting firm TIW, told AFP before the announcement.

“Toyota has maintained steady production while releasing timely models in major markets.”

The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the global auto sector but demand recovered swiftly in the second half of last year, most notably in the United States and China.

Sales fell 8.9 percent to 27.2 trillion yen but the firm expects to report a 10.2 percent gain to 30.0 trillion yen in the current fiscal year.

Even as vaccine rollouts put the end of the pandemic within sight for the hard-hit auto sector, it is battling a chip shortage driven by a surge in demand for electronic devices during lockdowns. Supply disruptions including a fire at a Japanese factory, an extreme cold snap in the United States and a drought in Taiwan have compounded the mismatch between demand and availability.