Toyota slashes forecasts as global crisis bites

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Toyota Motor Corp more than halved its profit forecasts, saying annual net earnings will plunge to a 9-year low as a financial crisis batters demand for its cars, cuts access to credit and sends the yen higher.

Toyota, the world's No.1 automaker and until recently the envy of the industry with eight straight years of profit growth, has put factories on hold, let go temporary staff and offered buyers unprecedented incentives as sales slide.

Its rivals are also struggling, prompting talk of mergers between Detroit's General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC as sales plunge and they face deep losses.

Toyota shares slumped 10 percent ahead of the results on Thursday, in line with a similar fall in Tokyo's transport sector subindex after a newspaper reported Toyota's operating profit forecast would be less than half of last year's.

For the year to end-March, Toyota now expects operating profit of 600 billion yen ($6.1 billion) versus a previous forecast of 1.6 trillion yen. A poll of 17 brokerages had forecast 1.34 trillion yen.

The maker of the Camry sedan, Prius gas-electric hybrid and Tundra pickup now expects net profit of 550 billion yen instead of 1.25 trillion yen. That would be its lowest net profit since the year ended March 2000.

SLOWDOWN SPREADS

The impact of a global credit crisis has spread to emerging markets such as China and India, throwing a wrench in automakers' plans to seek strong growth there to offset slumping sales in the big U.S. and European markets.

Toyota's U.S. sales are down 12 percent year-to-date, prompting the top Japanese automaker to lower its forecast there this week -- the second cut in four months.

Toyota's announcement completes a brutal earnings season for Japanese car makers.

Of the eight, only Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd did not lower its annual forecasts. Nissan Motor Co shocked investors last week by more than halving its operating profit forecast.

Toyota's July-September operating profit fell 72 percent to 169.5 billion yen, while net profit sank 69 percent to 139.8 billion yen.

Shares in Toyota have lost 37 percent this year, better than the 43 percent decline in Tokyo's transport sub-index.

Toyota has lost $77 billion in market capitalization this year, ceding its long-held post as the world's most valuable car maker to Volkswagen, which has gained on Porsche's plan to buy more than three-quarters of the German car maker.

(Additional reporting by Sachi Izumi and Aiko Hayashi; Editing by Lincoln Feast & Ian Geoghegan)