Toyota (TM), the world’s largest automaker by production, reported blowout results for its fiscal year 2024, though investor response was muted as the company issued a conservative outlook, reflecting heavy investments that need to be made as its business transforms.
Toyota projects FY 2025 sales revenue will climb 2% to 46 trillion yen ($295.6 billion), with operating income slipping nearly 20% to 4.3 trillion yen ($28 billion) and net income dropping nearly 28% to 3.57 trillion yen ($23 billion).
“We intend to draw up further growth strategies for sustainable growth. To that end, we will continue to focus on giving concrete form to our vision of transforming into a mobility company in this fiscal year,” Toyota president Koji Sato said in his prepared remarks.
“This fiscal year, in addition to our 1.7 trillion yen ($11 billion) investment in growth areas [mobility transformation], we plan to dedicate 380 billion yen ($2.44 billion) to such investment in human resources to strengthen our work foundation and to change how we work, together with our suppliers and dealers,” he continued.
In response to Wednesday’s report, Toyota ADR shares trading on the NYSE were up less than 1% in midday trade.
Toyota, which sold over 11 million vehicles last year globally, is coming off a blowout year. Sales revenue jumped 21.4% to 45 trillion yen ($290 billion), with operating income jumping 96.4% to 5.35 trillion yen ($34 billion) and net income more than doubling to 4.94 trillion yen ($32 billion).
But challenges from investing in an electrified future, including full EVs, hybrids, and even hydrogen fuel cells, and troubles in China may dampen results.
“As we strive to build a future sustained by electricity and hydrogen, battery EVs are the missing piece,” Sato said in the Q&A portion of the investor presentation, per Bloomberg. Sales of Toyota’s popular hybrids are also included in the company’s transformation.
As with other global automakers, Toyota’s China business slipped, with increased marketing costs in the highly competitive region pulling operating income lower.
“We’ll have to continue enduring for several years until we have more battery EVs to offer,” said CFO Yoichi Miyazaki regarding the China business, claiming the price wars on the mainland were getting “tougher every day.”
Toyota did give shareholders a nice bonus in the new fiscal year, however, offering to buy back up to 1 trillion yen ($6.4 billion) of its shares, as well as paying out 1 trillion yen in dividends for the year.
CFRA’s Garrett Nelson, who has a Buy rating on Toyota, believes the automaker is poised to grow over the next year because of its prowess with hybrids.
“Based on our analysis, the automakers best positioned to capitalize on the growing popularity of hybrids include Asian original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), such as Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai, as well as US automaker Ford,” Nelson said in an autos thematic research note published in late April. Conversely, Nelson views Toyota rival GM less favorably given its slow pace with hybrid adoption.
Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram.
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