Car giant Toyota has seen its profits fall for the first time in five years. The Japanese firm said that it sold more cars in the year to March 2017 than it had done in the previous 12 months, however higher costs and fluctuations in currency affected their results.
The profit of 1.83 trillion yen was down 21 per cent from 2016 to 2017. The firm has warned that next year’s profits will be even lower due to the Japanese currency showing strength. The prediction is based on the forecast that the yen will average around 150 to the US dollar in the months leading to March 2018.
Toyota, who recently lost its top-selling car maker status to German manufacturer Volkswagen, sold 10.25 million vehicles in the past 12 months however the income from these sales were down at 27.6 trillion yen. At the start of 2017, Toyota said it plans to invest $10bn in the US over the next five years following market sales in the country falling.