Dragged down by recent stock market turbulence, Toyota Motor Corp. slashed its net profit forecast for the current business year on Wednesday and now estimates the figure will be down by 25 percent compared to fiscal 2017.
Despite record sales of ¥22.47 trillion and increased operating profit of ¥1.93 trillion for the April-December period, net profit decreased to ¥1.42 trillion, down 29.3 percent from the same period the previous year. Toyota revised down its net profit forecast to ¥1.87 trillion from ¥2.3 trillion. The firm saw profit of ¥2.49 trillion in fiscal 2017.
The decline is mainly caused by the equity-market rout in December, which inflicted about ¥310 billion damage in shares of nongroup companies that the automaker holds, said executive Masayoshi Shirayanagi.