Tokyo - Japan's leading carmaker Toyota Motor Corp expects sales in 2009 to drop, owing to weak demand from North America, the company said Thursday.

Toyota lowered its global sales prognosis from 10.4 million units to 9.7 million units for next year, delaying the company's goal to become the world's first carmaker to sell more than 10 million units per year.

The corporation - which also includes Daihatsu, a maker of small cars, and Hino, a truck producer - originally expected the US market to come out of its present funk by the first half of 2009, but it now believes an improvement was unlikely until at least the second half of the year.

Toyota's revised numbers are, however, still 200,000 units above the sales expectations for 2008.

The carmaker said Wednesday that it increased its global production last month by 9 per cent to 720,923 vehicles, meeting increased demand for fuel-efficient cars.

Hino, which produces sports-utility vehicles for Toyota, is expected to cut production, owing to a 34-per-cent decline in US sales of SUVs in July.

Declines in the US market were offset by a rise of production in China and other emerging markets, Toyota said. Skyrocketing fuel prices and economic worries are dampening demand in the United States.

Honda Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co, Japan's second- and third-largest vehicle makers, also increased their global output last month. (dpa)