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Toyota, the world's largest carmaker, has tripled its forecast annual losses to 450 billion yen (£3.39 billion).

The revision came as the Japanese group announce a 28 per cent fall in revenue during the final three months of last year, which amounted to an operating loss of 164.7 billion yen (£1.24 billion).

Toyota, which has previously been in the black for the entirety of its 71-year history, has already halted all but one of its assembly lines in response to falling demand and in order to save jobs.

Ten further similar productions breaks are schedule to take place over the next two months ahead of the annual results announcement.

"Both revenues and profits declined severely during this period," commented Toyota executive vice president Mitsuo Kinoshita.

"The negative results are largely due to lower vehicle sales volume under difficult market conditions.

"The sales environment has worsened dramatically in the past month and a half in the main markets of Japan, North America and Europe."

Honda, Toyota's biggest rival, as well as Mitsubishi and Mazda, have all already forecast massive end-of-year losses as the global downturn wreaks havoc with carmakers' fortunes.