Toyota Q1 net profit up 11pct to $5.6 bn, boosts FY forecast

By AFP August 3, 2017 | 11:23 pm PT

A woman walks past Toyota Motor Corp's C-HR model which is displayed at its headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, February 6, 2017.Photo by Reuters/ Kim Kyung-Hoon

Toyota last year suffered its first drop in annual profit in five years.

Toyota said Friday its fiscal first quarter net profit jumped 11 percent to $5.6 billion with vehicle sales up in Japan and the United States, while it also lifted its annual earnings forecast.

The Corolla and Prius hybrid maker posted a net profit of 613 billion yen ($5.6 billion) in the three months to June as revenue rose 7.0 percent to 7.05 trillion yen.

Operating profit, however, fell nearly 11 percent to 574.3 billion yen, partly owing to currency fluctuations, it said.

Toyota, which lost its crown as the world's top-selling automaker in 2016, now expects profit for the year to March 2018 to come in at 1.75 trillion yen, up from an earlier 1.5 trillion yen forecast.

The manufacturer last year suffered its first drop in annual profit in five years, pointing to the cost of customer incentives in the competitive U.S. market.