2
NEWS
Toyota Australia announces massive financial loss
Restructuring and investment for Camry update leaves Toyota's local arm over $400 million poorerToyota Australia has today announced a $437 million loss for the 2013/14 financial year, ending March 31.
It's a major setback after a $144 million profit the year before. In making the announcement, Toyota Australia President Dave Buttner observed that too many "external factors" had undone the good work of local staff, who had locked in the necessary investment to build a mid-life refresh of the Camry sedan at the Altona plant from next year.
"Our employees worked incredibly hard to secure the investment for the new look Camry, which will be built in our Altona plant from early next year," Buttner was quoted saying in a press release issued today.
"We also exceeded our cost reduction targets for the second year in a row, which was the result of a company-wide transformation activity to strengthen our business.
"However, despite these positive results, there were too many external factors beyond our control that made it unsustainable to continue building cars and engines in Australia in the mid to long term future.
"This has obviously had a significant impact on our results as our focus is now on supporting our employees and ensuring that we have the correct provisions in place as we transition to a national sales and distribution company."
It's much the same story as for Holden and Ford – with all three companies announcing during the same accounting period the cessation of local manufacturing by 2017. Restructuring costs for Toyota over the course of the financial year totalled $889 million, of which $505 million comprised asset write downs and $384 million set aside for employee redundancy packages.
If not for the costs associated with the end of local manufacturing, Toyota would have turned a profit, it claims, of around $266 million. Retail sales during the financial year amounted to 221,771 units, handing Toyota clear and unassailable market leadership for the period. Toyota Australia claims to have hurdled its cost reduction targets for the financial year with plenty of room to spare. And despite the decision to quit manufacturing in Australia, the Altona plant still shipped 67,000 cars overseas out of its total production of 102,590, and the Camry remained the top-selling mid-size car in Australia.
The one-off costs were undeniably complicit in the lower revenue for the year – down from $8.9 billion the previous year to $8.4 billion.
Share this article
Written byCarsales Staff
See all articlesOur team of independent expert car reviewers and journalistsMeet the team
Stay up to dateBecome a carsales member and get the latest news, reviews and advice straight to your inbox.
Subscribe todayRelated articles
Disclaimer
Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
Contact
Advertise with us
International marketplaces
Scan to download the carsales app
Want more info? Here’s our app landing page
App Store and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Inc. Google Play and the Google Play logo
are trademarks of Google LLC.