Weaker Japanese yen boosts Toyota profit

• Toyota%27s profit%2C sales easily beat estimates
• Weaker yen played a role in strong earnings report
• Stocks in Japan fell sharply Tuesday

Japanese car major Toyota, the world's top selling automaker, raised its earnings forecast Tuesday as quarterly profit and sales far outpaced Wall Street's expectations.

Toyota's profit for the October-December quarter totaled a better-than-expected 525.4 billion yen ($5.2 billion), up dramatically from 99.9 billion yen a year earlier.

Quarterly sales jumped 24% to 6.585 trillion yen ($64.2 billion).

Analysts polled by FactSet had expected a 437 billion yen ($4.3 billion) quarterly profit.

Toyota cited a depreciating yen as one factor in the strong results.

The upbeat outlook underlines a continuing recovery at Toyota, whose production was battered by a tsunami and earthquake in March 2011 in northeastern Japan.

Toyota's Japan-listed shares closed down nearly 6% on Tuesday. The firm's strong earnings report was issued after the close of markets there, which fell sharply.

Contributing: Associated Press