Honda Motor Co's net profit jumped 62.4 per cent year-on-year in the October-to-December quarter on strong sales in North America and a recovery from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the country's third-largest carmaker said Thursday.
Net profit rose to 77.4 billion yen (850.5 million dollars),
helped also by a recovery from flooding in Thailand in late 2011 that
shut down Honda factories and suppliers.
Operating profit for the quarter tripled from the same quarter a
year earlier to 131.9 billion yen while sales climbed 25 per cent to
2.43 trillion yen.
But the net profit outlook for the current financial year, which
ends March 31, was trimmed by 5 billion yen to 370 billion yen, Honda
said.
Forecast operating profit remained at 520 billion yen, "factoring
in a decline in automobile sales in Europe and China due to severe
economic conditions which offset the positive impact of the recent
depreciation of the yen," the carmaker said in a statement.
The carmaker's output in China plunged 38.5 per cent in December
as local demand slumped amid growing tensions between Japan and the
world's second-largest economy over a territorial dispute.
But global production in 2012 jumped 41.3 per cent to 4.11 million
units as it boosted output in North America and the rest of Asia.
The carmaker's domestic sales rose 48 per cent to 745,165 units in
2012 for the first increase in two years while shipments out of Japan
in the year fell 8.7 per cent to 214,562 units, the company said.
