Toyota Motor Corp. managed to post pretax profits of 324.56 billion yen in the April-September period, up 25.6 percent from the same period last year, as brisk exports made up for lackluster sales in the domestic market, the nation's largest automaker said Thursday.

The firm's operating profits rose 38.8 percent to 285.28 billion yen, according to Toyota. The automaker's domestic sales dropped 5.1 percent while exports rose 16.1 percent in the first half of its business year.

Net sales declined 7 percent to 3.797 trillion yen, partly due to a change in its accounting methods, according to the firm. Consequently, sales are 659.36 billion yen less than they would have been under the previous method, but pretax profits are not affected, the automaker said.

If calculated under the old accounting system, sales revenue in the half-year term would have posted an 8 percent increase from the same period last year, the firm said. Toyota expects 7.8 trillion yen in sales and 650 billion yen in pretax profits for the full business year that ends next March.

"We are aiming to increase both sales and profit for the current business year. It will be a tough challenge under the current economic condition, but we'll continue our efforts to increase sales," said Iwao Isomura, company vice chairman.

Currency turmoil that began in Thailand and spread to the rest of Southeast Asia also cast a shadow over the company's financial results, forcing it to reduce production volume in Thailand by 20,000 units for the first half of the current year and by 90,000 units for the whole year.

"It will have more negative effects in the October-March period," Isomura said.