Honda reports $776 mn profit in Q4

Driven by strong growth in automobile sales, Japanese car maker Honda Motor Company today said it is back in profits with a net income of 72.17 billion yen ($776 million) in the January-March quarter of FY2010.

A year ago, the company had suffered a net loss of 179.95 billion yen during the January-March period, Honda said in a statement today.

Net sales rose 28 per cent from the year-ago period to 2.27 trillion yen ($24.5 billion) in the fourth quarter ending March 31, 2010, "due to increased revenue in all of the business segments and currency translation effects."

In the January-March quarter of 2010, Honda's revenue from Asian operations surged 28.2 per cent to 429.1 billion yen ($4.61 billion) compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, due to increased revenue in the automobile and motorcycle business and the impact of currency translation effects.

Honda's operating income jumped by 566.1 per cent to 30 billion yen ($323 million) in Asia during the January-March period this year.

For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2010, Honda posted a 95.9 per cent growth in net income to 268.4 billion yen ($2,885 million). However, the company's revenue for the period amounted to 8.57 trillion yen ($92.21 billion), which was a decrease of 14.3 per cent compared to the previous fiscal.

Honda expects a net income of 340 billion yen in the year ending March 31, 2011, with sales amounting to 9.34 trillion yen during the period. The company's sales in the motorcycle segment totaled 2.6 million units during the January-March quarter of FY2010, an increase of 30 per cent from the corresponding period last year.

The auto maker's domestic motorcycle sales rose 16 per cent to 59,000 units during the quarter, while it sold 2.54 million motorcycles outside Japan, 30.3 per cent more than the last year, due to increased unit sales in Asia, especially in India and Indonesia.

In the automobile unit, Honda's sold 874,000 units, an increase of 28.5 per cent compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.

Source: indiacar.com Source : http://www.business-standard.com (4/28/2010)