Japan's top automaker Toyota today said it faced an "unprecedented" operating loss of $1.69 billion for fiscal 2008, the first such loss in the company's history, due to dwindling global auto sales and a surging yen.
The latest projection of an operating loss of 150 billion yen ($1.69 billion) in its second downward revision for the year to March 2009 represents a reversal from the previous estimate of an operating profit of 600 billion yen for the year through next March.
Toyota Motor Corp booked a record operating profit of 2.27 trillion yen in the previous fiscal year.
"We are facing unprecedented emergency circumstances," Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said at a press conference.
Toyota said it is expecting a net profit of 50 billion yen ($555 million) for the business year through next March, down 90.9 per cent from a previous estimate of 550 billion yen made in November and compared with a net profit of 1.72 trillion yen the year before.
"The change that has hit the world economy is of a critical scale that comes once in a hundred years," Watanabe said, adding that the drop in vehicle sales over the last month was "far faster, wider and deeper than expected."
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It also revised downward its group global automobile sales target for calendar 2008 by 540,000 units from the previous estimate in July to 8.96 million units due to slowing demand amid worsening economic conditions, Kyodo news agency reported.
The revised sales target will be 4.4 per cent lower than the previous year when it sold 9.37 million vehicles worldwide, including those of two subsidiaries -- compact car maker Daihatsu Motor and truck maker Hino Motors.