April 13 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s largest automaker, fell as much as 1.3 percent after a report it may report an operating loss for a second straight year as the global recession saps car demand.

The carmaker lost as much as 50 yen to 3,860 yen and traded at 3,870 yen, as of 9:02 a.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Toyota may report an operating loss of more than 500 billion yen ($5 billion) for the year ending March 31, 2010, the Nikkei newspaper reported yesterday, without saying where it obtained the information. The company may post a loss of 425 billion yen in the period, according to the median of 20 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Hideaki Homma, a spokesman at Toyota, declined to comment on the report.

Sales will likely drop to about 20 trillion yen this fiscal year, from an estimated 21 trillion yen for the period just ended, the Nikkei reported. Toyota will likely sell about 6.5 million vehicles this year, the first time for unit sales to fall below 7 million in six years, the newspaper said.

Toyota’s operating loss totaled about 500 billion yen last fiscal year, compared with the company’s estimate of 450 billion yen, the newspaper said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Naoko Fujimura in Tokyo at nfujimura@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 12, 2009 20:08 EDT