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Toyota predicts double the profit in 2013; Q4 income quadruples

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After dealing with floods, earthquakes and a super-strong yen, Toyota Motor Corp. is following a fourth quarter in which income quadrupled with a similarly optimistic forecast for 2013.

The Japanese car company, which last year relinquished the title of world’s largest automaker to General Motors Co., said it earned 121 billion yen, or $1.52 billion, in the quarter ended March 31. That’s compared with the 25.4-billion yen profit recorded during the same quarter a year earlier.

And to Chief Executive Akio Toyoda, the future looks good too.

The past few years brought an “extremely challenging” business environment, he said, including a devastating tsunami and earthquake to Japan, floods in Thailand that disrupted the supply chain, unfavorable exchange rates and a series of product recalls and quality-control concerns.

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As a result, income during the last fiscal year slumped 30.5% to 283.6 billion yen, or $3.6 billion.

But for the current fiscal year, Toyota is predicting that its profit will more than double to 760 billion yen, or $9.5 billion. The Camry and Prius maker, which has boosted its post-earthquake production levels, expects revenue to soar 18.4% to 22 trillion yen after slumping 2.2% this past year to 18.6 trillion yen.

Toyota also expects to sell 8.7-million vehicles this fiscal year – more than 1.3-million autos above last year’s number, due in part to planned changes in Toyota and Lexus cars and new launches such as the electric RAV4.

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In North America, vehicle sales for the most recent fiscal year slumped 159,000 units to under 1.9-million autos.

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