Toyota Motor Corporation - Essay Example

Toyota Motor Corporation, the world’s largest automobile manufacturer in terms of production opts as the topic for this assignment. The Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) or simply Toyota is a multinational automaker headquartered at Toyota in Japan and it was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda on 28th August 1937. By the end of 2010, Toyota employed 317,734 people globally. Toyota, Lexus, Hino Motors, and Daihatsu are the major group companies of Toyota whereas TMC constitutes an important part of the Toyota Group.

The consolidated financial statements of Toyota give specific information regarding the financial affairs of the company. From its annual report 2011 of Toyota, it is clear that the company attained $214,318 million in sales of products. The net income of the company for the financial year 2011 is $4,909 million. When the company’s net income per share is $1.57, its cash dividends per share are $0.60. In addition, Toyota’s total current assets stand at $142,270 while total current liabilities represent the figure of $129,778. The annual report 2011 indicates that the company’s total assets or total liabilities are $358,607 million. Finally, the consolidated balance sheet also shows that the total shareholder’s equity of Toyota for the year 2011 is $131,329 (Toyota, 2011).

While assessing the management discussion and analysis section of the annual report, it is clear that the company management greatly emphasizes automotive operations as this segment accounts for 89% of Toyota’s total revenues. The report specifically states that Japan and North America are the potential market segments for the company based on vehicle unit sales for the fiscal year 2011. The general tone of the management’s comments indicates that the firm would have attained much more profitability if its operations had not been affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake (Toyota, 2011). The company’s vehicle unit sales declined in its major markets including Japan and North America. However, Toyota could achieve notable improvements in Asia and other market segments as compared to the previous year. This trend indicates that Asia is developing as a potential market segment for Toyota while the company is gradually losing its roots in North America. However, the overall vehicle unit sales have increased from 72, 37,000 in 2010 to 73, 08,000 in 2011 despite the adverse impacts of the earthquake (Toyota, 2011). In total, fiscal 2011 was a good year for the company. The discussion summary shows that the management is strongly optimistic about Toyota’s future.