Nissan says H1 net profit rises 25% to US$2.3b

[TOKYO] Nissan reported on Tuesday its half-year net profit rose 25 per cent to US$2.3 billion, lifted by strong North American sales and new models, with a sharply weaker yen also boosting the Japanese automaker's bottom line.

The Altima sedan maker said it earned 237 billion yen(S$2.69 billion) in the April-September period, up from 189.82 billion yen a year ago, while sales rose 8.2 per cent to 5.14 trillion yen.

Operating profit rose to 261.9 billion yen, up 18.0 per cent, Japan's number-two automaker said.

But Nissan also pointed to slowing demand in its number one market China.

"Nissan successfully overcame challenging market conditions in the first-half of the fiscal year, delivering solid revenues and profitability amid encouraging demand for our latest models," the firm's chief executive Carlos Ghosn said in a statement.

"Nissan is on track to deliver its full-year net income guidance, reflecting the benefits of our continued product offensive, financial discipline and synergies from our (Nissan-Renault) alliance strategy." Nissan said "the improvement reflected strong unit sales growth in North America and signs of stabilisation in western Europe," despite "slower demand in Japan and continued volatility in Russia and other emerging economies".

Increasing popularity of such vehicles as the Qashqai, Rogue and X-Trail also contributed to the positive results, Nissan said.

For the fiscal year to March, the firm slightly upgraded its sales forecast to 10.8 trillion yen from 10.79 trillion, while it left unchanged expectations for a 405 billion yen net profit and an operating profit of 535 billion yen.

AFP