Investing in Japan: Toyota keeps enlarging its business field including the "Woven City" project to build the first full-scale smart city in Japan

-

Toyota expands its business to new mobility fields, biotechnology, afforestation, environment and energy.

Toyota Motor Corporation has been developing new businesses in various fields such as housing, finance and telecommunications in addition to its main business of automobile manufacturing and sales. Recently, Toyota also focuses on fields such as automobile related business, new mobility fields, biotechnology, afforestation, environment and energy. 

Toyota recognizes developing new businesses is indispensable to maintain its vitality and grow sustainably. Toyota has announced a number of new businesses and initiatives since the beginning of this year. For example, Toyota will establish a preparatory committee for the "Hydrogen Value Chain Promotion Council," a new organization that promotes global cooperation on the use of hydrogen and the formation of a supply chain, together with private companies to build a hydrogen society. ENEOS, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Kansai Electric Power, Kobe Steel, Toshiba, etc. will participate in this initiative. 

Toyota also announced that it has agreed with East Japan Railway and Hitachi to jointly develop a test vehicle equipped with a hydrogen-fueled cell and a hybrid system powered by a storage battery. A hybrid test train will be developed aiming for high-power control to drive railway trains larger than automobiles by fusing the railway technology and automobile technology of the three companies applying fuel cells that have already been put into practical use in automobiles to railways. 

In addition, Toyota has started the "Connected City" project in Susono City, Shizuoka Prefecture, aiming to build the first full-scale smart city in Japan where various latest technologies and services are introduced, verified and demonstrated. For example, in this city which Toyota calls "Woven City", roads are classified into three types: roads dedicated to fast vehicles, roads where pedestrians and slow personal mobility devices coexist, and roads dedicated to pedestrians. Several plans have been proposed, such as installing all the city's infrastructure underground including fuel cell power generation. Construction is scheduled to begin in early 2021.

Toyota seems to be on a recovery track from pandemic pain, the latest financial results show

Regarding to recent financial results, the spread of the new coronavirus has cast a long shadow on Toyota Motor's business performance. Operating income for the first quarter of 2020 (April-June period) was 13.9 billion yen, a significant decrease of 98% from the same period of the previous year. Due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection, many factories around the world stopped operating and automobile sales were sluggish. 

Toyota Motor Corp. is reforming its wage system to withstand such difficult situations. From 2021, Toyota will introduce a new system that eliminates regular salary increase in every spring and raises the salary only for employees with highly evaluated performance. The purpose is to enhance Toyota's competitiveness by introducing a system that rewards those who have worked hard so that Toyota can protect its employees at all costs. 

Even in a harsh environment, there is a silver lining on the horizon for Toyota’s business. Toyota Motor announced on November 6 that it has revised upward its consolidated earnings forecast for the full year ending March 2021. Toyota expects the operating income of 1.3 trillion yen, 2.6 times of the previous forecast of 500 billion yen indicating that sales are recovering from the damage of the new coronavirus outbreak. 
Toyota keeps enlarging its business field including the "Woven City" project


Toyota Motor's global sales in September 2020 increased 1.9% year-on-year to 837,000 units and global production increased 11.7% to 842,000 units. Sales and production reached record highs for the month of September driven by strong demand in China and the United States having turned positive year-on-year for the first time in 9 months. In the July-September quarter, global consolidated sales recovered to a level of 17.6% decrease from the same period of the previous year securing operating income of 506 billion yen in the last three months alone. 
Toyota keeps enlarging its business field including the "Woven City" project


Against the backdrop of improving performance, Toyota increased the interim dividend by 5 yen from the same period of the previous year to 105 yen per share. Toyota’s recovery is expected to continue steadily from now on with its global consolidated sales in the January-March quarter of next year to increase by 5% year on year.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Food and Drinks: Kaiten-sushi serves fresh and high quality of seafood

-
Image
Conveyor belt sushi , also known as Kaiten-sushi is a semi-self-service type, inexpensive sushi restaurant where small plates bringing various types of sushi on them are continuously circulated on chain conveyors installed along the seats.  Fresh and well-made sushi can be enjoyed for relatively cheap prices there. Plates typically come with one or two sushi pieces each and customers pick up plates they like. Customers can also place orders through a touch screen at each table when sushi they like is not available on conveyor belts.  Those Sushi are usually served on plates with several colors showing their prices ranging from 100 yen to around 500 yen. Some restaurants set the same price for all plates. The lowest price for a plate is usually 100 yen. That is why Kaiten-sushi is often called "100 yen sushi" and very popular among Japanese. Customers are given their bills from a staff who counts plates when they finish eating. Kaiten-sushi has grown thanks to technologie...
Read more

Investing in Japan: Menicon, a leading Japanese contact lens manufacturer, aims overseas market expansion

-
Image
Menicon secured profit growth amid COVID-19 disruptions Menicon Co., Ltd. is a leading contact lens manufacturer in Japan founded in 1951, headquartered in Nagoya. It consistently develops, manufactures and sells contact lenses and related products in-house. To date, Menicon has developed various types of contact lenses such as hard lenses, soft lenses, disposables (disposable), lenses for astigmatism and bifocal lenses. It has the No. 1 market share for hard lenses and the No. 2 market for soft lenses in Japan.  As for the recent consolidated financial results, Menicon announced that net income for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020 was 4 billion yen, up 14% from the previous year. While the sales and profits of most Japanese companies fell sharply due to the spread of new coronavirus infections, Menicon increased its sales by 4.5% from the previous year to 84.5 billion yen, a record high for the fifth consecutive year since listing of its stock. On the other hand, the earning...
Read more

Investing in Japan: Toyota shows its strength shrugging off pandemic damage and semiconductor shortage

-
Image
COVID-19 cases rise in Japan amid state of emergency, Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics to be downsized The Japanese government has decided to add three prefectures to its state of emergency as coronavirus cases continue to rise.   Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on May 14 that he decided to expand a COVID-19 state of emergency covering Tokyo and other areas to three more prefectures as infections continue to surge ahead of the Summer Olympics.  Starting on May 15, it will cover Hokkaido, Okayama and Hiroshima in an effort to curb infections and ease the strain on medical systems. The government will also designate three more prefectures as areas where intensive virus measures should be taken which is often called “Manbou”, acronym in Japanese for quasi-emergency to contain the virus.  Daily new cases have been on the rise nationwide in recent weeks reaching more than 6,000 for the fourth straight day as of May 14. The recent spike in new cases forces the organizers of ...
Read more