Report: Toyota Plans To Shut 300 Dealers In Japan

TOKYO (AP) — Local media reports that Toyota Motor Corp. is shutting 300 dealerships in Japan over the next three years.

Toyota is the world's biggest automaker and has 4,000 dealerships nationwide but is expecting its second straight year of losses for the fiscal year through March 2010.

Kyodo News, reporting out of Nagoya, central Japan, did not identify the source of the information, and calls to Toyota offices in Japan went unanswered late Tuesday.

The company managed to post a better-than-expected profit for the second fiscal quarter, and recently trimmed its projected loss for the fiscal year to 200 billion yen ($2.2 billion) — less than half the 450 billion yen ($5 billion) of red ink it had expected earlier.