Reuters is reporting that Toyota Motor Corp., the world's most profitable car maker, posted a 14 percent rise in quarterly operating profit to $4 billion on Tuesday as sales raced ahead in overseas markets and a weaker yen boosted earnings made abroad.
Japan's biggest auto maker, valued at $185 billion - more than DaimlerChrysler AG, Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. combined - had an operating profit of 482.21 billion yen ($4.05 billion) for October-December. That was slightly short of a mean estimate of 485 billion yen in a survey of four brokerages by Reuters Estimates.
Net profit surged 34.1 percent to 397.57 billion yen ($3.37 billion) thanks to a rise in the value of its stake in former UFJ Holdings after the bank's merger to form the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.
The maker of the Camry sedan does not provide group-based profit forecasts but has said it expects to beat last year's record even at a now-conservative dollar rate of 110 yen for the year to end-March. It kept its parent-only forecasts unchanged, projecting a net profit of 670 billion yen.
