TOKYO: Japan’s second-biggest carmaker, Nissan Motor Corporation, has posted a rise of 37.4% in net income for the six months ending in September. The firm also revised its full-year to March 2016 forecast for global car sales to 5.5 million vehicles – up by 3.4% from a year earlier. Net income for the September half came to 325.6bn yen ($2.7bn; £1.74bn).
The company said sales had been given a boost by demand from North America and Europe, together with a weaker yen. A weaker yen makes goods made by Japanese exporters less expensive overseas.
Despite the slowdown in China, Nissan said its sales of passenger vehicles there rose by 9.5% for the period. However, the firm noted “declining market conditions” in Japan, as well as several emerging markets.
“Nissan has delivered solid revenue growth and improved profitability in the first half of the fiscal year, driven by encouraging demand for our vehicles in North America and a rebound in western Europe, which compensated for market volatility elsewhere,” said chief executive Carlos Ghosn.
The firm said it sold 2.62 million vehicles globally during the six months, marking a 1.3% rise year-on-year. Other Japanese carmakers reporting their earnings this week are Honda and Toyota.
In September, Nissan said it would invest £100m ($154.2m) in its Sunderland factory in the UK. It said its investment would secure thousands of jobs and would give security to the plant beyond 2020. The factory made 500,000 cars last year, which Nissan says makes it the biggest car plant in the UK.
The firm’s Europe chairman, Paul Wilcox, told the BBC earlier that demand in China and Russia was slowing, but that the car market in western Europe was “very good and improving”. Headquartered in Yokohama, Nissan was first established in 1933 and employs more than 140,000 people. It formed an alliance with Renault in 1999.
