Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday its group pretax profit in the April-June quarter was 449.94 billion yen, up 51.2 percent from a year earlier due to strong sales in North America.
Group net profit for the first quarter of the 2002 business year surged 117.1 percent to 352.37 billion yen on sales of 4.02 trillion yen, up 20.1 percent, Toyota said. Consolidated operating profit climbed 35.4 percent to 394.52 billion yen.
It is the first time Toyota has released its earnings report on a quarterly basis, and the figures show it has enjoyed its best performance to date.
Even with the detraction of 56.8 billion yen in costs, including those for research and development, operating profit rose a sharp 103.2 billion yen.
The decline of the yen against the dollar helped increase operating profit by 70 billion yen, with the exchange rate for the dollar at 127 yen in the April-June quarter, up 4 yen from a year before.
Increased sales, mainly in the North American market, helped boost operating profit by 20 billion yen.
Overseas sales in the first quarter rose 27.6 percent to 1 million vehicles, mainly due to growth in North America. Total sales, including those in Japan, rose 13.1 percent to 1.5 million vehicles.
The brisk figures follow the earnings report for 2001 released in May that shows Toyota posted a group pretax profit exceeding 1 trillion yen -- a first for a Japanese company.
Toyota officials said the company is making efforts to surpass the achievements of 2001.