TOKYO: Toyota Motor Corp., battling a two- month slide in US sales amid recalls of millions of vehicles, may post a sales spike this month after introducing an incentive campaign, Edmunds.com said.

Sales in March may jump 30% from a year earlier as the world’s largest carmaker offers no-interest loans for as long as five years and discounted leases for select models, Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive officer of Santa Monica, California-based data provider Edmunds.com, said by phone today.

“Americans love a bargain,” Anwyl said. “Car buyers still feeling financially distressed see this as the best time to buy.”

The incentives and a “huge reservoir of goodwill” Toyota has built up over the years are limiting fallout from global recalls of more than 8 million cars, Anwyl said. The cost of the measures to boost sales may also erode profit at the Toyota City, Japan-based company.

The incentives, lower North American sales, an increase in advertising spending and scaled-back cost-cutting efforts may cut Toyota’s operating profit by 290 billion yen ($3.2 billion) next fiscal year, Kurt Sanger, a Tokyo-based auto analyst at Deutsche Bank Group, said in a report on Feb. 18. The analysis anticipated the incentive program announced on March 2, Deutsche Bank spokesman Aston Bridgman said.

Sales Surge

Toyota’s US sales, excluding the Lexus brand, surged 50.5% in the first eight days of March from a year earlier, spokeswoman Celeste Migliore in Torrance, California, said today. President Akio Toyoda, 53, said earlier this week that the company’s sales in the nation will recover in March after falling 8.7% in February and 16% in January.

Seventy-four% of Toyota owners said they haven’t lost confidence in the company’s vehicles, and 82% think they are safe, Gallup said last week, citing a poll conducted on Feb. 27 and 28.

Toyota fell 1.6% to 3,440 yen as of 1:27 p.m. in Tokyo trading. The shares have declined 11% this year as the carmaker recalled vehicles worldwide to repair defects linked to reports of sudden, unintended acceleration.

The company faces as many as 105 class-action and 31 individual lawsuits claiming deaths or injuries connected to vehicles speeding out of control.

Toyota may post 390 billion yen in operating profit and 359 billion yen in net income in the fiscal year beginning April 1, compared with the company’s current-year forecast for a 20 billion yen operating loss and 80 billion yen in net income, according to Sanger’s report. Profit will rise as sales and margins improve in emerging markets and in Japan, he said.

The company may post net income of 469 billion yen next fiscal year, according to the median of 20 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.