Toyota Seen Exceeding GM’s Profit This Fiscal Year

Toyota Motor Corp.’s profit may climb to a five-year high and exceed General Motors Co.’s earnings this year, signaling Asia’s biggest carmaker is close to full force after reeling from natural disasters and a recall crisis.

Net income at the Camry-sedan maker may triple to 817.7 billion yen ($10 billion) in the fiscal year ending March 2013, according to the average of twenty-one analyst estimates. That’s more than Detroit-based GM’s estimated profit over the next four quarters.

Akio Toyoda, grandson of the founder, is rolling out new Prius hybrids, Corolla compacts, and Lexus sedans as he seeks to regain market share in what may be his first crisis-free year since becoming president in 2009. While production has returned to normal, Toyoda now faces a reborn GM that’s Number One in global sales, a rising Hyundai Motor Co., and a growing Volkswagen AG (that’s dominating luxury-car sales in China).

"This will truly be a test year for Toyoda because the success of a president’s business strategies can really be seen when there are no irregular factors," said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees about $600 million at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co. in Tokyo. "He must be coming out stronger because of the many challenges he’s faced, so I think we can look forward to seeing how he narrows the gap against GM."

Toyota may forecast sales will climb twelve percent to 20.8 trillion yen in the twelve months ending March 2013 and top all carmakers in terms of revenue, though not in terms of net income, according to estimates. VW is projected to earn more.

By volume, the Japanese carmaker said in February that deliveries -- including those of its Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd. units -- will increase twenty-one percent to a record 9.58 million vehicles in the regular calendar year. That would be more than last year’s sales by GM, which hasn’t given a forecast for 2012.

Toyota’s rebound is already under way. Analysts estimate profit during the fiscal fourth quarter jumped fivefold to 140.1 billion yen, the highest in almost two years, as Toyota cranked up production thirty-six percent and led the Japanese auto industry’s recovery. The yen, which appreciated and eroded the value of Japanese exports in 2010 and 2011, has reversed course by becoming the worst-performing major currency during 2012.

Toyota’s fourth-quarter rebound wasn’t enough to keep full- year income from tumbling thirty-three percent to 272.9 billion yen as the Japanese disaster and subsequent floods in Thailand crippled automotive output, according to the analyst estimates. Toyota wasn’t alone as Tokyo-based Honda last month reported annual profit fell sixty percent and Yokohama, Japan-based Nissan, which reported on May 11, has said since February that net income would slide 7.9 percent in the year ended March 2012.

For Toyoda, the natural disasters followed the crisis he oversaw during 2009 and 2010, when defects related to unintended acceleration led to the recall of more than ten million vehicles -- more than Toyota has sold in its best year.

"What we want more than anything is for nothing to go wrong this year," Toyoda told reporters in Tokyo in March.

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