Car giant unfazed by profit slide

Toyota is reporting that quarterly profit slid 13.5% but is confident enough in a recovery to raise its forecast for annual profit.

Toyota Motor reported today an 80.9 billion yen (1.05 billion US dollars) profit for the October-December third quarter, down from 93.6 billion yen a year earlier.

Car production was hurt by the tsunami disaster in Japan and flooding in Thailand last year.

But underlining a recovery is on track, Toyota raised its fiscal year profit forecast to 200 billion yen (2.6 billion US dollars) from an earlier 180 billion yen (2.3 billion US dollars).