Toyota sees growth as profit soars

TOKYO - Toyota Motor, the world's most profitable car maker, posted a 53.2 per cent rise in quarterly operating profit yesterday on healthy sales, cost cuts and a weaker yen, and it forecast more growth this year as it adds production capacity around the globe.

The company also said it would seek to buy back up to 200 billion ($2.23 billion) of its own shares by June 2007.

Riding a reputation for making good, reasonably priced cars, Japan's top car-maker has won customers in most markets, pushing up sales by around 500,000 cars a year for the past five years. It expects to make more than 9 million units this year.

Toyota, whose market capitalisation of US$217 billion ($349 billion) values it at three times the New Zealand economy, has cranked up profits to record levels even as it faced soaring raw materials prices and cut-throat competition and spent more on facilities and vehicle development.

Compiling group-based earnings forecasts for the first time, the leading maker of fuel-saving hybrid cars forecast its operating profit would grow marginally to 1.9 trillion yen ($27 billion) in the year to end-March 2007.

Toyota, whose popular models include the Prius and the Camry, the top-selling sedan in the United States, looks poised to overtake General Motors soon as the world's leading car maker by sales volume.

The company last month outsold DaimlerChrysler in the US. Most of Toyota's domestic rivals reported record annual earnings as they won customers from North America to Europe.

- REUTERS