AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/13 Report--

Toyota, the world's largest carmaker, is expected to reach 24 trillion yen (1.5817 trillion yuan) in sales this fiscal year (April 2020-2021) under the severe impact of the epidemic. Operating profit is expected to reach 500 billion yen (33 billion yuan), the lowest level in nine years.

On the same day, Toyota released its financial report for fiscal year 2019 (April 2019 to March 2020), showing that Toyota achieved sales of 29.9299 trillion yen (1.9724 trillion yuan) in fiscal year 2019, down 1.0 percent from the same period last year. Operating profit was 2.4428 trillion yen (about 160.9 billion yuan), down 1.0 percent from the same period last year; and net profit was 2,076.1 billion yen (136.8 billion yuan), up 10.3 percent from the same period last year. The epidemic seriously affected the performance of the fourth quarter, with Toyota's fourth-quarter net profit falling 86% to 63.1 billion yen (4.16 billion yuan), compared with 459.5 billion yen a year earlier.

During the reporting period, Toyota's cumulative global sales fell 1.9 per cent to 8.958 million vehicles. Japan's largest carmaker is grappling with the impact of COVID-19, whose sales in many global car markets have been severely affected by the epidemic.

Toyota president Akio Toyoda said at the report meeting that car sales are expected to decline 20% in fiscal year 2021, and the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic has exceeded the financial crisis of 2008. Despite the collapse in profits, Toyota said it would not make changes to research and development and capital.

Honda, another Japanese carmaker, also reported on the same day that its full-year sales fell 6 per cent year-on-year to 14.93 trillion yen (987.3 billion yuan). Net profit fell 25 per cent year-on-year to 455.7 billion yen (30.1 billion yuan), while operating profit fell 13 per cent to 634 billion yen (41.9 billion yuan), the lowest in the past four years. Honda's sales fell 14.6% year-on-year to 3.46 trillion yen (228.6 billion yuan) in the fourth quarter, with a net loss of 29.5 billion yen (1.95 billion yuan).

Honda said in the financial report that due to the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, global automobile consumer spending and corporate activities have stagnated, and the future development prospects are still uncertain. It is difficult to predict when the COVID-19 epidemic will subside globally, and how the situation in each country and region will develop. Honda will not release its profit forecast for the new fiscal year because of the uncertainty brought by the epidemic to global car sales.

Global sales of seven Japanese automakers fell 7.3 per cent to 26.5 million vehicles in the 2020 fiscal year to March, the lowest in four years, with Toyota's sales falling 1.4 per cent and Honda's 8.5 per cent lower, according to Kyodo news agency.

Toyota, Honda and other automakers have resumed production at their factories, but there is a crisis of weak demand in the car market as the global economic downturn drags down consumer spending. Many car companies are trying to take various measures to deal with the crisis, but it is difficult for car sales to recover from the epidemic.

While there is still a lot of uncertainty about the spread of the overseas epidemic, China has become the first car market to pick up, and a number of car companies, including Honda Toyota, want to save their performance in the coming months. we also need to rely on the Chinese market to resume work and production.

Toyota has four plants in Guangzhou, Changchun, Tianjin and Chengdu, and Honda has seven plants in Wuhan and Guangzhou, all of which have resumed production in an orderly manner. To make up for the loss of production in the Chinese market over the past few months, Toyota Honda plans to speed up production at its domestic plants in may, up 10% from the same period last year.

Both Toyota and Honda's car sales in the domestic market picked up in April, with Toyota's April sales rising 0.2 per cent to 142900 and Honda's April sales falling 10 per cent to 113400.

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