Toyota cuts fiscal 2025 net profit forecast due to U.S. tariff

TOKYO, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- Toyota Motor Corp. on Thursday revised its net profit forecast for the current fiscal year ending March 2026 downwards to 2.66 trillion yen (about 18 billion U.S. dollars) due to higher U.S. auto tariffs.

The full-year net profit estimate marked a 44.2 percent drop from the previous year. In May, the auto giant projected a 34.9 percent year-on-year decline to 3.1 trillion yen, reflecting the impact of tariffs for the two months through May.

The company is now expecting that higher duties on U.S.-bound vehicles will reduce its operating profit by 1.4 trillion yen, a 1.2 trillion yen increase from the impact reflected in the previous forecast.

For the latest fiscal 2025 outlook, operating profit is projected at 3.2 trillion yen, down 33.3 percent from the previous year, on estimated net sales of 48.5 trillion yen, up 1.0 percent, Toyota said.

In making the latest forecast, Japan's biggest automaker factored in the trade deal Washington agreed in late July to lower the tariffs on Japanese car imports to 15 percent from 27.5 percent, the rate imposed since April.

For the April-June quarter, Toyota posted a net profit of 841 billion yen, down 36.9 percent from the same period last year, while its net sales grew 3.5 percent to 12.25 trillion yen.

Toyota also said on Thursday it plans to establish a new vehicle manufacturing plant in Aichi Prefecture, with operations expected to start in the early 2030s, noting the plan is aimed at maintaining production capacity of 3 million vehicles in Japan. (1 Japanese yen equals about 0.007 U.S. dollars)■