Toyota Motor Corp on Friday forecast a far bigger full-year loss than it forecast six weeks ago as the world's biggest automaker tries to cut production fast enough to match a sharp drop in global sales.
The company made the announcement after the close of the Japanese markets.
A sudden dive in demand since late last year has hit automakers around the world. Toyota has too much capacity after years of building new plants to keep up with demand.
Toyota started the current financial year with a forecast to make 8.87 million vehicles in the 12 months to March.
But by November, it had slashed that target by nearly 1 million vehicles, and has since announced more cuts in North America and Japan, without specifying the scale.
For the year to March, Toyota now expects an operating loss of 450 billion yen ($US4.95 billion), three times the loss it forecast in late December.
Toyota changed its annual net forecast to a 350 billion yen loss from a 50 billion yen profit.
It would be Toyota's first consolidated operating loss in its 70-year history.
Production cuts
The company has announced a number of measures to control spending.
Toyota is reducing work to a single shift on 17 out of 75 assembly lines around the world at different times in January and February, and will close all domestic factories for a total of 14 days in January-March.
In North America, Toyota has set non-production days ranging from 1 to 13 days a month at six assembly plants between last month and early April.
Toyota's sales in the United States, its biggest market, fell 34% in January and 23% in Japan.
Related industries are also affected.
