In the past quarter, the third quarter of its broken fiscal year, Toyota posted significantly more profit than a year earlier. The Japanese manufacturer is doing above average, despite the corona crisis and chip shortages.
Toyota has made much more profit in the past quarter than a year earlier. It posted a profit of 838.7 billion yen (€ 6.6 billion) in the third quarter of its broken fiscal year. That is 50 percent more than in the same period a year earlier. Sales increased by 7 percent to 8,150 billion yen (€ 64.3 billion). The carmaker is benefiting from the auto industry recovering from the corona crisis, particularly in the United States and China. According to analysts, Toyota is recovering even faster than competitors. Things are looking even brighter for 2021: Toyota raised expectations for the entire fiscal year, which runs to the end of March. The turnover that the company is now counting on is still more than 11 percent lower than in the previous financial year.
Furthermore, the company stated when publishing the figures that it does not expect to be affected by the chip shortages in the car sector in the short term. More and more automakers worldwide are struggling with chip shortages, which means they can produce and sell fewer cars. This is mainly because the crisis has boosted sales of home appliances. As a result, many of the available chips in computers, tablets and other electronics disappear. But the chips are essential for modern cars that have more and more smart applications.
In 2020 Toyota dethroned rival Volkswagen as the world’s largest car salesman. Volkswagen sold more than 9.3 million cars worldwide. Toyota came in at over 9.5 million copies, including figures from subsidiary brands Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino. Compared to previous years, the figures are poor. Because factories had to temporarily shut down production in the spring due to the corona pandemic, fewer cars were delivered. Many dealers also temporarily closed their doors, causing sales figures to plummet.