Brisk U.S. Sales Lift Toyota's Profit Forecast for the Year TOKYO - Toyota Motor raised its annual profit forecast Tuesday despite a decline in its quarterly profit, as brisker sales in the United States gave the Japanese automaker a much-needed lift in a year overshadowed by natural disasters. Toyota's net profit slipped 13.5 percent to ¥80.9 billion, or $1.05 billion, for the last three months of 2011, hurt by production cutbacks in the aftermath of the massive tsunami in Japan and flooding in the manufacturing hub of Thailand. But the maker of the Camry sedan also raised its annual profit forecast to ¥200 billion yen from 180 billion yen on the back of higher sales forecasts, as it rolls out new versions of its popular Prius gas-electric hybrid and Lexus luxury vehicles in the United States and other important markets. Toyota hopes that the new models will help it regain some of the market share it ceded to rivals like General Motors and Hyundai last year, after the tsunami in northeast Japan shuttered factories and severed supply chains, decimating production for months. Just as the company appeared to be rebounding from the tsunami damage, widespread flooding in Thailand, a major manufacturing base for Japanese automakers, again curtailed production. In 2011, sales of Toyota vehicles fell 7 percent in the United States and 23 percent in Japan, helping General Motors knock the company, based in Toyota City, from its perch as the world's largest automaker. But since then, the Japanese automaker has been ramping up production capacity at home and overseas. It said Tuesday that its Mississippi plant, which makes Corollas, had added a second shift, bringing annual production capacity to 150,000 vehicles. Toyota had stalled construction at the plant following the global financial crisis in 2008, finally bringing it online last October. Sales in the United States, Toyota's largest market, are now picking up, rising 7.5 percent in January thanks to a 56 percent jump in its flagship Camry sedan, according to Bloomberg. Toyota is also bullish on Japan, its second-largest market, after the government began tax incentives for low-emission cars in December in a bid to help its struggling auto industry. The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, an industry body, expects the move to increase car sales in Japan by almost a million vehicles in 2012. The automaker said it now expected to sell 7.41 million vehicles worldwide in its financial year ending in March, compared with a previous projection of 7.38 million. Despite the higher forecasts, Toyota languishes far below the heights it reached just before its profits were decimated by the global financial crisis, as well as massive recalls over faulty gas pedals. Its net profit forecast of ¥200 billion yen for the current financial year is just a fraction of the ¥1.7 trillion it earned in 2008. And its estimated vehicle sales of 7.41 million for the year remains far below the almost 9 million cars it sold in 2008, a record year at the company.