Toyota Posts 3.5% Increase in Net Income

Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s biggest carmaker by market value, said Thursday that its fiscal third-quarter profit rose 3.5% as costs fell and demand increased for models such as the Corolla compact car. The company raised its full-year unit- sales forecast.

Net income rose to 297 billion yen, or $2.85 billion, in the three months ended Dec. 31 from 286.5 billion yen a year earlier, the Japanese automaker said. Revenue grew 5.9% to 4.64 trillion yen, or $44 billion.

Toyota President Fujio Cho aims to take 15% of the global market within a decade and surpass General Motors Corp. as the world’s largest carmaker by unit sales. The company is cutting costs and expanding production overseas to protect earnings from a stronger yen.

Toyota raised its global sales forecast for the year ending March 31 by 70,000 units, or 1%, to 7.29 million vehicles. It also projected sales increases for 2006 and 2007. In the U.S., where Toyota last year became the first foreign automaker to sell more than 2 million vehicles in one year, the company forecasts a 4.4% gain in sales for 2005.

Toyota’s current worldwide market share is 11%, according to Credit Suisse First Boston. Detroit-based General Motors on Jan. 13 estimated that its 2004 global market share declined 0.1 percentage point to 14.5%.

Toyota raised its 2004 market share to record levels in Japan, the U.S. and Europe, the world’s three biggest car markets, at the expense of GM and Ford Motor Co. Toyota’s market value of 14.6 trillion yen, or $140 billion, is more than the combined capitalization of five of the world’s other six biggest automakers ranked by unit sales: GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Volkswagen and PSA Peugeot Citroen. Toyota is No. 2 in global sales, behind GM.

Toyota raised its share of the U.S. market to 12.2% in 2004, an increase from 11.2% a year earlier, according to Autodata Corp. of Woodcliff Lake, N.J. Toyota’s 2004 U.S. share was within 1 percentage point of DaimlerChrysler’s Chrysler unit, the third-biggest U.S. automaker, which had 13%.

Toyota’s U.S.-traded shares fell $1.21 to $77.51 on the New York Stock Exchange.