Japanese automaker Toyota's profits zoom on cheap yen, strong global sales

abcnews.go.com:

Toyota’s profit in the latest quarter jumped nearly threefold from a year ago as vehicle sales grew around the world and a cheap yen boosted the Japanese automaker’s overseas earnings

TOKYO — Toyota’s July-September profit jumped nearly threefold from a year ago as vehicle sales grew around the world and a cheap yen boosted the Japanese automaker’s overseas earnings.

Toyota Motor Corp. reported Wednesday 1.28 trillion yen ($8.5 billion) in quarterly profit, up from 434 billion yen the previous year. Quarterly sales rose 24% to 11.43 trillion yen ($75.7 billion) from 9.22 trillion yen.

A cheap yen is a plus for Japan’s giant exporters like Toyota by raising the value of its overseas earnings when translated into yen. The U.S. dollar was trading at about 145 Japanese yen in the latest quarter, up from 138 yen. It’s trading above 150 yen lately.

The manufacturer of the Camry sedan, Prius hybrid and Lexus luxury models raised its profit forecast for the fiscal year through March 2024 to 3.95 trillion yen ($26 billion), up from the previous projection of 2.5 trillion yen.

The forecast, if realized, marks an improvement from the previous fiscal year’s 2.45 trillion yen profit, and will be a record high for Toyota.

Toyota is expecting its vehicle sales to grow in most major regions, officials said. Toyota’s vehicle sales for July-September grew from the previous year in the U.S., Europe, Japan and the rest of Asia, totaling more than 2.4 million vehicles globally, up from 2.1 million the previous year.

Toyota kept unchanged its forecast of selling 11.38 million vehicles for the full fiscal year worldwide.

Toyota has acknowledged it has fallen behind in battery electric vehicles to frontrunner rivals like U.S. EV maker Tesla