TOKYO - Nissan became the latest major Japanese automaker to report booming earnings for the just-ended fiscal year - and forecast a plunge in profit for the current year, blaming a rising yen and soaring material costs.
"There is no way we can overcome these headwinds," chief executive Carlos Ghosn told reporters Tuesday at Nissan's Tokyo headquarters.
Nissan Motor Co., Japan's third-biggest automaker, expects profit for the fiscal year through March 2009 to plunge 30 per cent to 340 billion yen (US$3.3 billion). Last fiscal year, its net profit rose five per cent to 482.3 billion yen ($4.6 billion).
Bigger rivals Toyota and Honda also announced strong annual earnings and dismal forecasts amid worries about the slumping U.S. economy and strong yen. Toyota Motor Corp. is projecting a 27 per cent tumble in fiscal year profit, while Honda Motor Co. foresees an' per cent drop.
For the January-March quarter, Nissan's net profit rose 67 per cent to-7.6 billion yen ($1.3 billion). That includes one-time "fifth-quarter" numbers from overseas subsidiaries that were added to the previous year's fourth quarter to put all global units on the same fiscal calendar. Without those numbers, Nissan said, quarterly profit jumped 95 per cent.
In a news conference, Ghosn promised that Nissan will take the lead in electric vehicles.
Under a new five-year business plan through March 2013, Nissan will introduce an electric vehicle in the U.S. and Japan in 2010, and mass-market such vehicles globally in 2012, he said.
Nissan has been criticized as falling behind Japanese rivals in working on green technology. But Ghosn said Nissan was ahead in electric vehicles just as zero-emission vehicles grow more attractive because of growing ecological concerns and rising gas prices
He brushed off fears that Nissan's car sales may be slumping, even in the U.S.
The sales were just fine, he said, and the profit dip merely reflects currency fluctuations that erode the yen value of Nissan's overseas earnings.
Nissan's sales recently rose three per cent in North America while the region's overall auto market declined by about the same rate, Ghosn said.
"In a challenging and volatile environment, Nissan demonstrated that it has reached the maturity to deliver a high level of performance," said Ghosn, who also heads Nissan's French partner Renault SA, which owns 44 per cent of Nissan.
Nissan sold 3.77 million vehicles worldwide for the fiscal year ended March 31, up 8.2 per cent from the previous year. In North America, Nissan's sales totalled 1.35 million vehicles, up 1.3 per cent on year.
Although fiscal year sales were down 2.5 per cent in Japan at 721,000 vehicles, they climbed 17.9 per cent in Europe to 636,000, and gained 22 per cent in other overseas markets, including China, at 1.06 million - surpassing the one million mark for the first time.
"All our growth is coming from emerging markets," Ghosn said, adding that established markets couldn't be expected to grow. "This is healthy for us."
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