Massive Anticipated Corona Hit Aside, Toyota's Sitting Pretty

Toyota, the automaker that regularly jousts with Volkswagen for the title of World’s Largest Automaker, expects its finances to take a major hit this year. A solid blow, but not a knockdown punch.

With sales down severely and production depressed across the globe, Toyota envisions an 80-percent profit drop for the current fiscal year.

After posting a profit of $22.3 billion for the fiscal year ending in March, the automaker said it expects the coronavirus pandemic to take a $14 billion bite out of its balance sheet. Operating profit for fiscal year 2020 is pegged at $4.7 billion.

Toyota’s car volume for the current year is expected to come in around 8.9 million vehicles, down from roughly 10.6 million last year. That’s a 9-year low for the automaker.

While the company expects return to healthy, 2019-like levels in 2021, this year will be a bitch of a thing, Toyota warned. You can’t fault the company for shying away from issuing less-than-rosy forecasts — something that can’t be said of many of its peers.

“The coronavirus has dealt us a bigger shock than the 2008 global financial crisis,” Toyota President Akio Toyoda said in an online media briefing, per Reuters.

“We anticipate a big drop in sales volumes, but despite that we are expecting to remain in the black. We hope to become a leader of the country’s economic recovery.”

While the reopening of America is well underway, with auto sales rising week over week, the fiscal damage of the extended lockdown is already severe, and it’s compounded by deprsssed sales overseas. Toyota reported a 54-percent U.S. sales drop in April. North American production got underway on Monday, but it won’t be business as usual for some time, what with new health protocol to adapt to and lingering supply chain issues.

Helping Toyota shrug off the damage is a massively loyal customer base and an array of products that top their respective segments in terms of sales.

[Image: Toyota]