Japanese auto giant Toyota Motor Corp today said it has swung into a profit

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of 190.46 billion yen (USD 2.22 billion) in the April-June quarter driven by higher sales in Asia.

In the year-ago period, the company had a net loss of 77.82 billion yen, Toyota said in a statement.

The company's net revenues rose by 27 per cent from the year-ago period to 4.87 trillion yen in the first quarter ended June 30, 2010.

Toyota's sold 4,19,079 more vehicles from the year-ago period to a total of 1.82 million units during the April-June period of 2010, despite a series of recalls over faulty pedals and inquiries into its safety record.

The company has witnessed a growth in all the major regions except Europe, where it witnessed a decline in sales.

"Due to an increase in vehicle sales and a large decrease in the costs related to loan losses and residual losses in financial services, operating income improved substantially on last year," TMC Senior Managing Director Takahiko Ijichi said.

In terms of geography, Asia was the best performer with sales climbed by 47 per cent to 2,85,824 units, sales in North America grew 36 per cent to 5,25,678 units, Japan's sales rose 23 per cent to 4,99,836 units, while in Europe it fell by 14 per cent to 1,86,990 vehicles.

The first-quarter earnings prompted Toyota to raise its earnings outlook for fiscal year 2011.

The company raised its net profit forecast to 340 billion yen from 310 billion yen for the year ended March 31, 2010. It also revised its sales projection upward to 19.5 trillion yen from 19.2 trillion yen.

In April-June quarter, the company's net revenues from Asia operations increased by 69 per cent to 835 billion yen. Besides, operating income grew by 63.3 billion yen to 90.2 billion yen.

"The increase in operating income was mainly due to increase in both production volume and vehicle unit sales," Toyota said.

During the quarter, revenues from Japanese business rose by 28.6 per cent to 624.8 billion yen, North America grew 26.2 per cent to 308.4 billion yen and Europe witnessed a growth of 10.7 per cent to 459.8 billion yen.