Japan's largest auto-maker Toyota is expected to report a record 1.1 trillion yen (10.6 billion dollars) net profit for the year to March thanks to brisk sales overseas, the Asahi Shimbun reported Thursday.
Toyota Motor Corp, whose group net profit for the previous year rose 53.4 percent to 944.67 billion yen, will become the first Japanese company reporting one trillion yen or more in net profit, the daily said.
Toyota's sales for the fiscal year just ended are estimated to have topped 16 trillion yen, compared with 16.05 trillion yen the previous year.
The profit and sales gains are mainly due to robust sales of newly released models overseas, mainly in the United States, the daily said.
Cost-cutting helped reduce the negative impact of the yen's strength against the dollar, which makes Japanese exports more expensive and reduces repatriated dollar income.
A Toyota spokeswoman declined to confirm the report, saying the company will announce its results for the 2003 fiscal year on May 11.
For the nine months to December 2003, Toyota reported a net profit of 810 billion yen on sales of 12.6 trillion yen.