Toyota Motor Corp on Wednesday reported a 77 per cent slump in net income to 25.4 billion yen (about $314 million) during the January-March quarter in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan, which disrupted production and vehicle sales.
The entity had posted a net income of 112.2 billion yen for the fourth quarter of 2010, Toyota said in a statement.
Toyota's performance was affected by the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March, which disrupted production and sales.
Revenues fell 12 per cent to 4.64 trillion yen in the quarter ended March 31, 2010, from 5.28 trillion yen in the year-ago period.
Toyota, which may lose its top position as the world's top-selling automaker to General Motors in 2011, has not announced its forecast for the fiscal year leading up to March 31, 2012, as it struggled to measure the extent of the disruption to production following the earthquake.
Toyota has not issued a guidance on vehicle sales and profitability for the 2011-12 financial year, "as more time is needed to complete the examination of production and sales plans due to the impact of the great East Japan earthquake," the company said.
During the three-month period ended March 31, 2010, Toyota's global vehicle sales dropped 12 per cent to 1.79 million mainly on account of a decline in sales in Japan and North America. In contrast, sales in Asia grew 23 per cent to 345,000.
Toyota said net income for the 12 months ended March 31, 2011, nearly doubled to 408 billion yen and sales increased by 0.2 per cent to 19 trillion yen.
"We finished the fiscal year to March 31, 2011, with improved operating income of 468.2 billion yen as a result of our efforts on marketing and cost reduction, despite a negative impact of around 100 billion yen from the great East Japan earthquake," TMC President Akio Toyoda said.
"Our business environment continued to be challenging due to yen appreciation, among others. Nevertheless, we managed to improve our profit structure even further thanks to the support from all our stakeholders, in particular our customers," he added.
Toyota's vehicle sales for the fiscal year totaled 7.308 million units, an increase of 71,000 units compared to the previous fiscal year.
In Asia, vehicle sales stood at 1.255 million units, an increase of 276,000 units.