TOKYO — Toyota’s quarterly profit tripled, driven by a recovery from natural disasters, and the company raised its full-year earnings forecast today despite a sales slump in China.

Toyota Motor, on track to regain the crown of world’s No. 1 automaker this year, reported a July-September net profit of 257.9 billion yen ($3.2 billion) compared with an 80.4 billion profit a year earlier. The result was better than the 238 billion yen ($3 billion) quarterly profit forecast by analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Japan’s top automaker raised its profit forecast for the full fiscal year through March 2013 to 780 billion yen ($9.8 billion) from 760 billion yen ($9.5 billion).

It had a profit of 283.5 billion yen the previous fiscal year when Toyota’s car production was hammered by the tsunami disaster in northeastern Japan and flooding in Thailand.

The company’s optimism comes despite a sales plunge in China, where a territorial dispute over tiny islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China has set off protests and a boycott of Japanese cars in recent months.

Quarterly sales improved 18 percent to 5.4 trillion yen ($67.6 billion) as the demand for Toyota vehicles picked up across all major regions, including North America, Europe, Japan and Asian nations other than China.