Toyota earns $5.1B in quarter, ups full-year forecast

Toyota Motor, the world's No. 1 automaker, raised its earnings forecast Wednesday after third quarter profit jumped 14%, boosted by a weak yen.

Toyota reported a better-than-expected 600 billion yen ($5.1 billion) profit for the three months through December, the third quarter of the Japan fiscal year.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast a quarterly profit of 540 billion yen ($4.6 billion).

Quarterly revenue of 7.17 trillion yen ($61 billion) was up 9% year-on-year.

Toyota's net income over the nine months that ended Dec. 31 was up 13.2%.

The Japan-based automaker boosted its forecast net income to 2.13 trillion yen ($18 billion) for the fiscal year that will end March 31. Yet it decreased its forecast for global vehicle sales to 9 million, a cut of 50,000 worldwide.

Losses in Japan and Europe were offset by those in North America over the last nine months of 2014. Toyota sold 2.1 million vehicles in North America during the period, an increase of 145,211 vehicles over the same period the year before.

The Japanese automaker, which makes the Camry sedan, Prius hybrid and Lexus luxury model, expects a profit of 2.13 trillion yen ($18 billion) for the fiscal year through March, up nearly 17 percent from the previous year. It had previously projected a 2 trillion yen profit.

Toyota has held the top spot in global vehicle sales for three years straight, selling 10.23 million vehicles last year, beating Volkswagen AG of Germany and U.S. rival General Motors Co.

Toyota's bottom line has gotten a lift from the cheap yen, although Managing Officer Taku Sasaki also credited cost cuts.

The dollar averaged about 114 yen for the fiscal third quarter, while it cost 100 yen the same period the previous year. It has risen to about 118 yen recently.

Toyota said it added 145 billion yen ($1.2 billion) to its quarterly operating profit from the foreign exchange rate, while gaining 80 billion yen ($680 million) from cost cuts.

In Minneapolis on Tuesday, a U.S. federal jury decided the design of the 1996 Toyota Camry had a dangerous defect that was partly to blame for a fatal 2006 crash, and ordered Toyota to pay nearly $11 million to victims.

But Toyota's global brand has largely recovered the recall crisis and U.S. sales have been doing well. Cash-rich Toyota is also likely able to afford the lawsuits.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.