Toyota loss to narrow, helped by hybrid boost, report says

Automotive News Europe
July 31, 2009 06:01 CET

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Toyota Motor Corp.'s loss for this business year
will likely be several tens of billions of yen less than originally
forecast by the automaker thanks to strong sales of hybrid cars,
Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported.

Toyota has forecast an operating loss of 850 billion yen ($8.9
billion) for the year to March 2010.

NHK said strong sales of its new Prius and other hybrid vehicles,
boosted in part by government tax incentives in Japan to promote
fuel-efficient cars, would help narrow its annual loss by several tens
of billions of yen.

Analysts have already estimated that Toyota's loss forecast would
prove to be far too pessimistic.

The market consensus is for a loss of 474.6 billion yen, according to
the average of 23 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

A Toyota spokeswoman declined to comment.

The company is scheduled to report earnings for the April-June quarter
on Tuesday.

Toyota shares rose 1.5 percent to 3,990 yen on Friday, outperforming a
1 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei average.

Earlier this week rivals Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co.
surprised investors by eking out profits in the latest quarter, and
Honda raised its annual operating profit forecast to 70 billion yen
from 10 billion yen.