Toyota’s officials announced today a surprising result of their financial assessments, as their fiscal fourth quarter dropped 28 percent. The reasons for the company’s first annual profit drop in nine years are a weak US economy, a stronger yen and a rise of material costs such as steel, precious metals and plastics.

Toyota Motor Corp. is the second largest automaker after General Motors Corp. and has announced its net profit the January – March quarter down to 316.8 billion yen ($3.05 billion/ 1.98 billion Euros) from last year’s similar period of 440.1 billion yen. Times reported that last year General Motors was celebrated as the world’s biggest automaker at a 3,100 vehicle-distance from Toyota, putting a lot of pressure on this year’s sales strategies.

"We are facing a severe business environment," Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said according to the Associated Press. "Toyota considers this headwind as a valuable opportunity to turn it into a more flexible and stronger company."

Reasons to believe that things can rapidly improve are surely present, as last year’s results showed a record of 8.91 million vehicles sold, with a 4.6 percent increase from the previous year.

Like many other major automakers, Toyota has tried to detach its main business from the United States and channel its efforts on China and other markets, especially with its popular and affordable small car segment. Still, at this point, close to a third of its business is found in the United States market.