Mazda Moves To Profitability

TOKYO, Nov 12 Reuters reported today that Mazda Motor Corp , Japan's fifth-largest automaker, said that aggressive cost cuts had helped it return to the black in the first half of 2001/02 with a 1.31 billion yen ($10.88 million) group net profit.

The result was largely expected, as Mazda had revised its forecast up to a one billion yen net profit last month, but it represented a huge leap from a May forecast of a 9.5 billion yen loss and an actual loss of 9.6 billion yen a year earlier.

Mazda, one-third owned by Ford Motor Co , said that cost-cutting efforts under its Millennium Plan and favourable exchange rates had helped it stem the bleeding.

``We are building a track record of delivering on our commitments -- and even exceeding them,'' Mazda President Mark Fields said in a statement.

``We sense real momentum as we move closer to launching our new generation of products starting with Atenza/Mazda 6 next year.''

The company said it would also be profitable on a group net basis for the full year to March, predicting a profit of 1.3 billion yen, or 1.06 yen per share, against a net loss of 155.2 billion yen the previous year.

It said it would be able to weather the global economic slowdown following the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Mazda plans to pay a dividend of two yen per share for the year, against a nil payout the previous year.

Consolidated operating profit totalled 11.2 billion yen for the six months through September, compared with a 4.7 billion yen loss for the same period a year earlier.

Overall sales rose 3.2 percent from a year earlier to 1.04 trillion yen for the half year, in line with Mazda's October estimate, with domestic sales suffering from a lack of new model launches.

Mazda posted group sales of 493,000 vehicles in the half year through September, down 0.2 percent year-on-year. It forecast full-year group vehicle sales for 2001/02 at 950,000 units, against a previous forecast of 978,000.

The automaker posted group sales of 964,000 vehicles in 2000/01.

Shares in Mazda, which spent much of the 1990s in the red and has been restructuring since executives were sent from Ford in 1996, were up 1.43 percent at 213 yen by Tokyo's midday break, prior to the announcement.

They outperformed a 0.27 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei average .

($1 equals 120.34 Yen)