• May 8, 2009

Toyota Motor Corp. says it lost $7.7 billion during the fourth quarter of the company's fiscal 2009, ending March 31. The company said sales totaled 7.57 million units, down 1.34 million from the last fiscal year.

North American sales were 2.21 million units, a decrease of 746,000 units. The company reported European vehicle sales of 1.06 million vehicles, which reflects a decrease of 222,000 units. In Asia, sales were down by 51,000 units. In Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, sales were off by 84,000 units.

The company's president Katsuaki Watanabe said in a release that Toyota will: "Accelerate our profit improvement activities including expansion of our hybrid vehicle lineup. We plan to launch four hybrid models in Japan and three models overseas within this fiscal year." He said the company expects profit improvement in fiscal 2010 through reduction of variable and fixed costs to be around 800 billion yen.--Karl Greenberg