Honda Motor Co posted a ￥72 billion (US$774 million) profit for the first quarter in a reversal from red ink a year earlier as booming demand in China and India combined with a fledgling recovery in the US boosted car sales.
Honda, Japan’s No. 2 automaker, reported yesterday that quarterly sales surged 28 percent from a year earlier to ￥2.28 trillion.
Honda, which makes the Insight hybrid and the Odyssey minivan, sold 874,000 vehicles in the fiscal fourth quarter, up 28.5 percent from 680,000 the year before.
Honda’s better fortunes mirror similar recoveries at other Japanese automakers, whose results had been battered the previous year by the financial crisis.
Honda’s sales in Japan recovered, helped by tax breaks for “green” models and brisk demand for smaller models like the Fit, Honda said.
For the fiscal year ended March 31, Honda reported a 96 percent rise in profit to ￥268.4 billion. Sales of ￥8.58 trillion were down 14 percent from the previous year.
Honda is expecting better results for the fiscal year through March 31 next year, forecasting ￥340 billion in profit, up 27 percent from the fiscal year just ended.
Sales are projected to climb 9 percent to ￥9.34 trillion, it said.
Honda’s US sales have been recovering moderately, while the European market was also gradually beginning to recover in the latter half, helped by government incentives, Tokyo-based Honda said.
Mazda Motor Corp and Mitsubishi Motors Corp — Japan’s No. 4 and No. 5 automakers — also posted net profits for the first quarter, reversing losses from a year earlier.
Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s biggest automaker, whose sales have been hurt by a recall crisis, and Nissan Motor Co, allied with Renault SA of France, Japan’s No. 3 automaker, report earnings next month.
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