Toyota reports plunge in quarterly profit

Toyota's second quarter profit srank to about a third of what it was the previous year, battered by a plunge in auto sales and a surging yen, forcing Japan's top automaker to Thursday sharply lower its earnings forecast for the full year.

Riding on the success of its gas-sipping hybrids and other fuel-efficient offerings, Toyota Motor Cop. has up until now largely avoided the deep problems of its money-losing U.S. rivals.

But the recent jump in the yen from about 118 yen to a dollar a year ago to 100 yen levels, combined with the U.S. financial crisis and credit crunch, have squelched auto sales at Toyota.

The company lowered its prot forecast for the year ending March 2009 to 550 billion yen ($5.5 billion), or about half of its earlier projection of 1.25 trillion yen ($12.6 billion), and about a third of the previous year's profit of 1.72 trillion yen.

Toyota's July-September profit was 139.8 billion yen ($1.4 billion), down about 69 percent from 450.9 billion yen in the same period the previous year. Quarterly sales dropped 8 percent to 5.98 trillion yen ($60 billion) from 6.49 trillion yen.

Toyota had been headed for its first year-on-year profit decline even before the weak second quarter result because of an accounting change.