Toyota Motor president Katsuaki Watanabe on Wednesday said the business environment had deteriorated more than expected and predicted North America’s car market would remain slow until 2010.
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He told Reuters in Tokyo he was worried the financial market turmoil originating in the United States was starting to affect economies world-wide while demand in emerging markets had been slower than expected.
“In the past week, what started in the US spread across the world,” Watanabe told the news agency.
A company source had earlier told Reuters Toyota was considering what would be a rare downward revision of its earnings forecast because of slow global demand and the firmer yen.
Watanabe reportedly said the business environment had worsened beyond expectations when the company announced first quarter earnings two months ago but it was still assessing the impact.
He added Toyota now expected the US to remain a tough slog throughout all of 2009, instead of recovering from spring of next year as originally thought.
