Toyota profit up nearly 5 percent on sales growth 

Toyota Motor Corp. reported a 5 percent jump in quarterly profit yesterday, outpacing expectations as vehicle sales grew in North America and Europe, offsetting a drop in Japan.
The Japanese maker of the Prius hybrid, Camry sedan and Lexus luxury model said April-June profit totaled a record 587.77 billion yen (USD5.7 billion). Quarterly sales rose 2 percent to 6.39 trillion yen ($62.3 billion).
Both were better than projections by analysts surveyed by FactSet, who had expected a 1 percent increase in quarterly sales and a 12 percent drop in profit compared with a year earlier.
Toyota Managing Officer Takuo Sasaki credited cost reduction efforts and a weak yen, which helps Japanese exporters such as Toyota, for the positive results.
But Toyota lowered its vehicle sales forecast for 2014, saying it now expects to sell 110,000 fewer vehicles worldwide than the plan announced in January. Even then, it will still reach the 10 million vehicle industry milestone at 10.22 million vehicles, up 2 percent from 2013.
For the first half of the year, Toyota remained the world’s top-selling automaker, although Volkswagen AG of Germany beat U.S. manufacturer General Motors Co. to become No. 2 in global vehicle sales. AP

Yuri Kageyama, Business Writer,
Tokyo