TOKYO, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- Toyota Motor Corp. on Wednesday cut its group net profit forecast for the business year through March as despite fairly robust sales in some overseas markets, appraisal losses from its investments in affiliates have weighed on the automaker's bottom line.

The Aichi Prefecture-based automaker said that owing to its investment losses, it now projects a group net profit of 1.87 trillion yen (17.05 billion U.S. dollars) in the business year ending March 31.

This compares to a 2.3 trillion yen (20.97 billion U.S. dollars) earlier estimate from the automaker.

The auto giant, however, left unchanged its group operating profit forecast at 2.4 trillion yen (21.89 billion U.S. dollars), with its sales projection for the full year estimated at 29.5 trillion yen (269.09 billion U.S. dollars).

The maker of the ubiquitous Corolla and Prius hybrid models raised its worldwide sales forecast for the fiscal year to a new record 10.55 million vehicles, an increase of 50,000 units.

Toyota said its group net profit in the April-December period stood at 1.42 trillion yen (12.95 billion U.S. dollars). This marks a 29.3 percent drop from a year earlier, based on Toyota's figures.

Its group operating profit, however, increased 9.5 percent to 1.94 trillion yen (17.69 billion U.S. dollars) on sales of 22.48 trillion yen (205 billion U.S. dollars), which is an increase of 3.1 percent, the auto giant said.