Toyota Motor says its group net profit and sales in the first half of this fiscal year were the highest on record.

Japan's largest automaker was able to rack up its highest global unit sales ever as a semiconductor shortage eased.

Toyota's net profit in the April-to-September period more than doubled from a year earlier to nearly 2.6 trillion yen, or about 17 billion dollars.

Sales came in at almost 22 trillion yen, or roughly 145 billion dollars. That's up 24 percent.

Unit sales were robust in the United States, Europe and Japan. But profit in China fell due to higher costs of promoting sales amid fierce price competition.

Toyota says a weaker Japanese yen and revamped production costs covered a drop in operating profit caused by soaring raw-material prices.