OMG! Toyota Makes Money At Home! What's The Nikkei Going To Do Now? Also: Toyota Top Management Answers Mike978's Questions
Waiting for Godot-san
In my report from Toyota’s quarterly results, there was one thing I forgot to mention decided to keep for later. As long as I have been going to these things, and it has been a while, the first question has always been given to a Nikkei reporter. Old Japanese custom, like AP (and recently Reuters) at the Whitehouse. As long as I have been going to these things, the Nikkei reporter always asked when Toyota wants to make a profit and pay taxes at home. That kabuki dance is disguised as “when can we expect positive results on an unconsolidated basis?” The folks in the room need no translation, they roll their eyes and pens, or check their Brakkubely. That’s a Blackberry for you. This time, it was different.
Read the fineprint
Keeping with traditions, the first question went to the Nikkei reporter. Keeping with traditions, the Nikkei reporter asked about Toyota making profit and paying taxes at home reporting positive results on an unconsolidated basis. Takahiko Ijichi was prepared for the question.
Answering Mike978’s questions about the currency rate
Ijichi begged forgiveness for having had to book an operating loss of 46.2 billion yen ($500 million) for the last quarter, because this is “where expenses seem to be concentrated”, but for the nine months, Toyota is in the green to the tune of 21.5 billion yen ($230 million) in at home Nipponese operating income. For the full year, Toyota expects 150 billion yen ($1.6 billion) in at home operating income, of which 140 billion yen ($1.5 billion) go on account of an improving exchange rate, Ijichi said, thereby also answering a question from the ranks of the TTAC commentariat.
Now what?
Ijichi had even better news for folks who feign concern about Toyota making profits and paying taxes at home in Japan, as opposed to raking it in in far-away places such as America or Southeast-Asia, only to dump it into a strong yen-lined black hole at home:
“For the first time in five years, we now have a clear prospect of achieving positive operating income on a non-consolidated basis.”
As long as the yen is going into the right direction, that is. The way it stands, the Nikkei will have to re-write the kabuki script and come up with another question to be asked at every Toyota press conference.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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A title with "Makes Money at Home" in it is probably going to get you a lot of traffic from lazy people that want large incomes for minimal work...so be warned.
I see the headline has been rewritten and the comments pruned. That's disappointing, but you gotta do what you gotta do.