Toyota saw quarterly profits push past the previous year’s number but failed to prevent an annual loss due to the rising costs of materials.
The automaker saw global net income reach 552.2 billion yen ($4.1 billion) for Q4 of the fiscal year ending in March, bringing its annual total to 2.45 trillion yen ($18.2 billion). Compared to the previous year, quarterly earnings rose 3.4% but declined roughly 14% for the twelve-month period. In the U.S., Toyota saw a quarterly operating income of 14.2 billion yen ($105.7 million), an 8.3% increase, but an annual loss of 74.7 billion yen ($555.9 million), a decline of 113.2%. Although sales volume improved 8.8% worldwide and 12.1% in North America between 2022 and 2023, the company reported that the growth was unable to prevent losses due to the increasing costs of raw materials.
For the new fiscal year, starting April 1, 2023, and ending March 31, 2024, the brand expects to see profits rise 5.2% to reach 2.58 trillion yen ($19.2 billion). The company cites three reasons for its forecast in a post in the Toyota Times: improving conditions surrounding semiconductor supply, growing production rates and increasing sale volume. The brand’s electric vehicle sales target is now 200,000 units, which it believes will be fueled by the release of the bZ3 sedan and Lexus RZ SUV later this year.
Toyota has come off a difficult fiscal year, which saw many automakers struggle to scale their operations in response to the rapidly fluctuating post-pandemic market. The company has also gone through a leadership transition, replacing former CEO Akio Toyoda with Koji Sato. Sato has promised to ramp up the brand’s electrification efforts and announced the manufacturer would look to “reduce emissions from new vehicles by more than 50% globally by 2035” during a May 10 press briefing.
