Toyota, whose operations have been severely disrupted since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, said Wednesday that its quarterly profit fell 77 percent but that it expected production to begin recovering up to two months sooner than previously forecast.

Still, the automaker said it could not forecast earnings or production for the year ahead because of uncertainty about its ability to resume normal output levels.

Toyota said the disaster in Japan cut operating income by 110 billion yen ($1.36 billion) even though it occurred only three weeks before the end of the quarter.

The strong yen also hurt earnings in the period, when net income was 25.4 billion yen ($314 million ), down from 112.2 billion yen a year earlier.