Toyota: Despite The Bad News, Things Are Looking Up

Date Posted: 21 August 2008

The soaring fuel prices have caused carmakers to lose profit around the globe. Toyota announced that its net profit fell 28 per cent in its first quarter financial results as a consequence of a steep decline in US sales.

Toyota, Japan’s biggest carmaker, is very profitable compared to its US competitors according to market analysts.

BrandIndex shows only a minor slump (3%) in the ‘Buzz’ scores for Toyota in the beginning of August. ‘Buzz’ for the brand reached its lowest value on the 8th (the day when the news was announced), but climbed slowly after.

General Impression score seems to be unaffected by the bad news as it firmly shows a value around 25% during the last 4 weeks. This suggests that the consumers’ perception of Toyota hasn’t changed regardless of the company’s poor financial result.

Mitsuo Kinoshita, Toyota’s executive vice-president, said he expected severe conditions in the US, the world’s biggest car market, to persist until the end of the year.

Agi Zabo, BrandIndex Research Executive

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