Toyota expects profits this year to plunge nearly 80% as it deals with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
The Japanese automaker, one of the world’s largest, said Tuesday that it expects operating profits to reach just 500 billion yen ($4.7 billion) this fiscal year — a forecast that would result in Toyota’s lowest profits in nine years.
For the year ended March 31, the company posted a 2.4 trillion yen ($22.3 billion) profit. That was just slightly under the estimate it released in February.
Toyota said it expects to sell 7 million cars this year, down from the nearly 9 million it sold last year, not including sales from smaller automakers it owns like Daihatsu and Hino. The company said it was “extremely hard to predict sales because it is likely to vary greatly from region to region.”
In addition to the roughly 20% drop in car sales, Toyota said that its profits would also be hurt by the value of the yen, which is strengthening against the US dollar. (The yen is a safe haven currency that investors traditionally flock to during times of market volatility.)
