Toyota Motor Corp. said Thursday it made record sales and profits in the business year to March 31 but warned that operating profit may fall by 29.5 percent in the 2008 business year, marking the first decline in nine years.
The yen's surge against the dollar, rising raw materials costs, as well as slumping sales in the U.S. market — Toyota's largest source of profit — are expected to dent profits in the year to next March, said the world's largest automaker in terms of output.
In the year that ended in March, Toyota posted ¥26.29 trillion in group sales, up 9.8 percent from the previous year, and saw its operating profit increase 1.4 percent to ¥2.27 trillion and its net profit grow 4.5 percent to ¥1.72 trillion.