Toyota Motor Corp reported on Thursday a surprise quarterly profit and halved its annual loss forecast as both sales and cost cutting exceeded forecasts, putting it on track to follow its Japanese rivals into the black next year.

The world's biggest automaker slashed its operating loss forecast to 350 billion yen ($3.9 billion) from 750 billion yen for the year to March, bringing the figure closer to an average projection of a 293 billion yen loss in a poll. Toyota revised its net loss forecast to 200 billion yen from a loss of 450 billion yen.

For the July-September quarter, the maker of the Prius hybrid car reported an operating profit of 58.0 billion yen, a far cry from a profit of 169.5 billion yen a year earlier, but beating an average loss estimate of 63 billion yen from five analysts.

Its net profit was 21.84 billion yen, against a 139.8 billion yen profit a year ago.

Shares of Toyota lost 2.7 per cent in the three months to the end of September, underperforming the main Nikkei average, which rose 1.8 per cent.