Toyota Profit hits five year low: Down 28 percent

Toyota Motor Corp. has seen a huge drop in their profit, the biggest in five years. The world’s second-largest carmaker has blamed poor sales of sport-utility vehicles and trucks, due to high fuel prices.

Toyota has reported that their net income has fallen by 28 percent to 353.7 billion yen or $3.2 billion, shares are now just 112.28 yen a share. The year earlier net income was 491.5 billion yen, or 153.89 yen per share.

According to Bloomberg, Toyota’s operating profit in North America feel by 57 percent, as we mentioned it is the sale of larger vehicles that have seen the biggest drop. Katsuaki Watanabe, President of Toyota Motor Corp. has had to halt the production of Tundra pickups and Sequoia SUVs for three months as a result of high oil prices.

Toyota has always been known for their larger vehicles, where Honda seems to produce smaller and fuel-efficient cars. This has seen an 8.1 percent gain for the automaker.

It is not just Toyota who is being hit with huge profit losses; Ford and GM are two more to add to that list. Automakers are now facing a fork in the road; they now have some tough decisions to make. One thing is certain; they will all have to think about producing smaller fuel-efficient cars.

Toyota lowers forecast as gasoline prices affects SUV sales

Toyota Motor Corp. has had to lower their sales and production forecast, this has been blamed on the high price of gasoline. The continuing increase in gasoline prices means that Americans are less willing to purchase SUV’s and pickups, which is having an affect on Toyota’s sales targets.

Toyota is expecting to sell 9.5 million vehicles worldwide by the end of the year, that is 3.6 percent down on the 9.85 million target, or 350,000 units. Last year Toyota sold 9.37 million vehicles.

The price of a gallon of gasoline topped $4 last month, this immediately dented SUV sales and Pickups. It was not just Toyota who was affected by this; even General Motors saw sales in SUV’s drop.

As a result Toyota had to suspend production of the Tundra pickups and Sequoia SUVs for three months from August.

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Supermarkets begin petrol price war

I am getting a little exited just thinking about this piece of new, it looks as though the UK’s top supermarkets have started a petrol price war. This will bring a huge relief to millions of motorists in the UK.

Asda have cut the cost of a litre of unleaded and diesel by 3p, Morrisons then reacted by reducing theirs by 4p. Both supermarkets have said that the reason for reducing the price of fuel is a direct result of the price of a barrel of oil going down.

Sainsbury’s have announced a new promotion, if you spend £50 in store; you will receive a voucher for 5p of a litre. That is the same deal that Tesco has on at the moment.

Tesco have also announced that they are reducing the price of a litre of diesel and unleaded by 4p.

BP are only lowering their prices by 1p, well at least it is better than nothing.

According to The Guardian, the AA president, Edmund King has said that this current price cuts show that the fuel spike has now reached a plateau. Hopefully if the price of oil drops further, then we could see even more reduction in the price of fuel.

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