8 Out of 10 Main Toyota Group Companies Post Losses Or Lower Profits April to June 2011

8 out of the 10 major Toyota Group companies either posted losses or reduced profits for the period from April to June 2011, the main cause being the continuing effect of the March 11th twin earthquake and tsunami disasters. Although production should start to improve now through the year, the continuing effects of both the exceptionally strong Yen, as well as the power shortages caused by a shutting down of a large part of Japan’s nuclear power capacity are unquantifiable.

Denso saw profits drop 94%. For Aisin, the figure was worse at 600 million Yen loss, as compared to a profit of 21.5 billion Yen in the same period last year. The strong Yen hit profits hard: Jtekt saw operating profits drop 34%, largely as a result of the strong Yen averaging 82 Yen to the US Dollar during this period – a full 9 Yen worse than the same period last year.

The exchange rate has become worse still with the uncertainty caused by the US budget issues, so it will be interesting to see how Toyota Group performs during the remainder of the year, as it increases production to try to offset earlier production and sales losses.

Source: Nikkei (Japanese-language)