Toyota, Ford Cut Production as Thai Floods Disrupt Supplies

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Toyota Motor Corp. widened global production cutbacks and Ford Motor Co. shut a Thai plant due to flooding, as Hynix Semiconductor Inc. said the disaster may cut personal-computer shipments in the first quarter of next year.

Toyota, Asia’s biggest carmaker, canceled overtime shifts planned for this week at plants in North America, and Ford suspended output in Thailand because of parts-supply shortages, the companies said separately yesterday. Shipments of PCs may drop, leading to lower prices for memory chips, if supply-chain disruptions from Thailand’s worst floods in half a century last into 2012, Ichon, South Korea-based Hynix said today.

Output losses from the floods that have inundated about 10,000 factories are spreading beyond Thailand as supplies of components for cars and computers are disrupted. Operating profit at Toyota may be reduced by 125 billion yen ($1.6 billion) as plant closures cut production by 250,000 vehicles through Nov. 20, analysts at Credit Suisse Group AG led by Kunihiko Shiohara said in a report dated yesterday.

“Difficulties securing electronic components are likely to have increasingly significant impacts,” Credit Suisse said in the report.

Toyota’s overtime cancellations will affect auto-assembly plants in Indiana, Kentucky and Canada and an engine factory in West Virginia, the Toyota City, Japan-based company said. The automaker is working to restock U.S. dealers after Japan’s record earthquake and tsunami in March cut production, and has said it will operate North American plants with overtime shifts for the remainder of 2011 to rebuild vehicle inventory.

Ford Production

Ford may lose production of…

Full story from Bloomberg Businessweek at http://goo.gl/NaLdW