Toyota forecasts record annual earnings for 2013

Toyota has announced it is expecting record annual earnings for 2013 as the weaker Japanese yen helps to boost sales abroad.

For the financial year ending March, it expects operating profit to reach 2.4 trillion Japanese yen ($23.7 billion).

The ongoing weakness in the yen also helped Toyota post better-than-expected earnings for the third quarter, with operating profit of 600 billion yen.

That is nearly five times higher than earnings in the same quarter one year ago.

Toyota said in a statement that its revised forecast is due to “progress in our recent profit improvement activities through cost reduction and marketing efforts, in addition to the change in our assumption of foreign exchange rates to reflect the depreciation of the yen.”

The Japanese currency has fallen by around 9% against the US dollar this year.

Toyota sold 9.98 million vehicles during 2013. That’s 270,000 more than its closest rival – US car giant General Motors.

Sales figures helped Toyota retain its position as the world’s largest carmaker by sales for two straight years.