Toyota profit up 28pc

TOKYO, Nov 06 (AP): Toyota Motor Corp. reported a 28 per cent surge in its net profit in the last quarter, helped by growing sales in Europe, Asia and the Americas, and raised its earnings forecast for the full year.

The top Japanese automaker said Tuesday that its July-September profit totalled 585.1 billion yen ($5.2 billion), up from 458.3 billion yen the year before. Quarterly sales rose 2.0 per cent to 7.31 trillion yen ($64.7 billion).

The manufacturer of the Camry sedan, Prius hybrid and Corolla subcompact forecast a 2.3 trillion yen ($20 billion) profit for the fiscal year through March. That exceeds its earlier forecast for 2.1 trillion yen ($19 billion), but is down nearly 8.0 per cent from a nearly 2.5 trillion yen net profit in the previous fiscal year.

Toyota sold 2.183 million vehicles in July-September, up from 2.175 million vehicles the same period a year earlier.