According to a Wednesday company statement, Toyota Motor Corp became the first Japanese firm record operating profit above 2 trillion yen ($16.68 billion).

Toyota's operating profit surged some 19.2 percent to 2.24 trillion yen for the 2006 fiscal year that ended in March, attributed to strong overseas sales and a weaker yen against the dollar. Toyota's robust overseas sales of fuel-efficient cars in North America and Europe bolstered its earnings results for the year and helped compensate for weak sales in the domestic and Asian markets, the company said.

Sales increased by 13.8 percent to 23.95 trillion yen, which placed Toyota second only to the US auto giant General Motors Corp's 24.86-trillion-yen ($207.35 billion) sales for the 2006 fiscal year.

Toyota’s report revealed a net profit of 1.64 trillion yen in the January-March period. Sales for the quarter increased 19.8 percent compared with last year’s same period. The automaker's global sales grew by 6.9 per cent to 8,524,659 units for the 2006 fiscal year, with 2,942,661 units in North America (up 15.1 percent) and 1,223,628 units in Europe (up 19.6 percent). However, its domestic sales dropped some fell 3.9 per cent to 2,273,152 units, while the sales for the rest of Asian fell 10.3 percent, to 789,637 units.

Toyota expects to see a 4.4 percent increase in sales to log 25 trillion yen in the 2007 fiscal year from global sales of 9.34 million units, which exceed the GM's global sales projections of 9.2 million units.