TOKYO: Toyota is lowering its profit forecast for the fiscal year through March 2009 to barely breaking even at 50billion yen ($555 million) as Japan's top automaker gets hammered by a plunge in global demand and a surging yen.
The latest forecast, given Monday, is far lower than its profit of 1.7 trillion yen earned the previous year.
President Katsuaki Watanabe told reporters Toyota now expects to sell 8.96 million vehicles around the world this year, down 4percent from the previous year. Unlike previous years, he gave no goal for 2009.