Toyota production up 9% in January, chip pain still lingers

TOKYO (Reuters) -Toyota Motor Corp boosted global vehicle production by 9% in January, it said on Monday, its first increase in two months even as the car maker continued to feel the strain from global chip shortages.

The company, which is the world’s largest automaker by volume, and other car manufacturers are still grappling with tight supplies of chips, although the constraint has eased from a year earlier, when pandemic-related lockdowns sharply hit supplies of semiconductors.

Toyota said it produced 689,090 vehicles globally in January, an 8.8% increase from the same month last year and just short of the 700,000 vehicles it previously said it expected to produce for the month.

That does not include production from its Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors Ltd units.

Global sales slipped 5.6% to 709,870 vehicles, Toyota said, reflecting the continued impact of the chip shortage.

Smaller rival Nissan Motor Co Ltd said its January production fell by a quarter to 224,236 vehicles.

Honda Motor Co Ltd said output fell 21.7% in January to 280,757 vehicles.

(Reporting by David Dolan; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Shounak Dasgupta)