Nissan Motor has announced healthy first fiscal half and second-quarter results, boosting net income after taxes JPY199.4bn year on year to JPY208.4bn yen (US$2.34bn, EUR1.83bn), and raised its full-year forecasts.
Net revenues were up 27.7% to JPY4.3191 trillion ($48.58bn, EUR37.95bn) in the April-to-September period, up 27.7% compared with a year ago. Operating profit was JPY334.9bn ($3.77bn, EUR2.94bn), and operating profit margin came to 7.8%. Ordinary profit was JPY315.1bn ($3.54bn, EUR2.77bn).
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In the first half, Nissan sold 2,009,000 vehicles worldwide, up 23.8% compared with last year.
“Our first-half results demonstrate that Nissan’s recovery efforts are working effectively,” said Nissan president and CEO Carlos Ghosn. “Our balance sheet is strong, and our momentum is trending in the right direction. In the second half, a wave of innovative product launches will continue to fuel Nissan’s profitable growth.”
In the July-to-September second quarter, Nissan’s net income was JPY101.7bn ($1.18bn, EUR920m). Net revenues were up 21.4% to JPY2.2689 trillion ($26.41bn, EUR20.5bn). Operating profit was JPY167bn ($1.94bn, EUR1.51bn), and operating profit margin came to 7.4%. Ordinary profit was JPY160.1bn ($1.86bn, EUR1.45bn).
Nissan sold 1,055,000 vehicles in the second quarter, up 17.1% year on year.
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By GlobalDataNissan raised its global sales forecast for the year to March 2011 to a record 4.1m vehicles from 3.8m, a jump of 17% from last year.
“They are basically batting the same as Honda margin-wise, and Toyota is obviously the big laggard of this group,” Christopher Richter, an auto analyst at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, told Reuters.
“From a financial perspective Nissan and Honda are the two stars of the sector.” He added that Nissan was among the most aggressive in trying to offset the yen’s strength, by importing more components from overseas and shipping the March/Micra subcompact from Thailand to Japan.
Nissan now expects operating profit for the full year of JPY485bn ($6bn) instead of its previous forecast of JPY350bn. The new figure would represent a 56% rise from the previous year. A survey of 22 analysts gave a consensus forecast of 476.5bn yen, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It now sees annual net profit at 270bn yen instead of 150bn yen.
“Depending on what happens with the overall macroeconomy and assuming we don’t see a global double dip, I think in terms of the models’ cycle they’ve got some positive factors in their favour,” said Andrew Phillips, an auto analyst at BNP Paribas Securities.
“That should help them to benefit from the continued recovery in global auto growth,” he added.
