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Honda lifts forecasts despite ninth-month profit drop
TOKYO, Feb 1, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Japan’s Honda Motor said Friday it was
revising up forecasts for its full-year net profit despite logging a fall of
34.5 percent for the nine months to December.
The country’s third-largest automaker revised up its full year net profit
to 695 billion yen ($6.3 billion) from the previous forecast of 675 billion
yen, while also lifting annual sales to 15.85 trillion yen from 15.80
trillion.
For April-December, net profit fell to 623.3 billion yen “due mainly to
the impacts of the enactment of the US tax cuts and Jobs Act in the same
period last year”, Honda said.
Operating profit fell 3.2 percent mainly because of decreased sales
revenue, as well as increased sales and administrative costs and “negative
foreign currency effects”, it added.
The company said auto sales in Japan grew 4.4 percent but US sales slipped
2.6 percent to 1.242 million units. Sales in China, where the economy is
suffering a growth slowdown, also fell.
But motorcycle sales climbed 6.6 percent in emerging Asian markets
including India, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, it said.
“Honda has been enjoying strong sales of motorcycles especially in
Southeast Asia,” Satoru Takada, an analyst at TIW, a Tokyo-based research and
consulting firm, told AFP ahead of the earnings report.
“Motorcycles are Honda’s advantage, which its rivals do not have,” he
said.
But he added that “Japanese carmakers are bracing for the impact of the
US-China trade dispute, which has already been visible on raw material
costs.”
BSS/AFP/HR/1400