Toyota return to profit in spite of recall worries

Toyota returned to profit in the 4th quarter (to March 2010) in spite of the Japanese car manufacturers recall issues being at their height.

In the 3 months to the end of March, Toyota built profits of 112bn yen ($1.2bn; £810m) a rebound from the 766bn yen loss for the same period in 2009.

Toyota was hit by a spate of recalls, but reduced its prices to help keep car buyers visiting their showrooms.

For the year to the end of March Toyota made 209bn yen, a sharp reversal from the 437bn yen loss in the year before.

Revenues for the 4th quarter were 5.28 trillion yen, up from 3.54 trillion yen a year earlier when the international economic downturn was at its deepest.

Toyota, the world’s biggest car manufacturer, had been forced to recall in excess of 8 million vehicles due to safety worries, and faces legal cases in the USA over fatalities attributed to alleged defective vehicles.

In spite of the questions of safety, Toyota also announced that it was predicting improved financial results for the next fiscal year, with profits of about 310bn yen.

Worldwide sales for the year totalled 7.24 million vehicles, a decrease of 4% on the year before. Toyota estimate this will improve to 7.29 million sales for the current fiscal year.

“There’s no change in the fact that we are in stormy waters. But now I feel that even in the storm, we can see a ray of sunlight in the distance,” Toyota’s president Akio Toyoda told a Tokyo news conference.