Nissan sticks to full-year forecast after reporting 16% rise in profit

Tokyo: Nissan Motor, Japan's third-biggest automaker, reported a 16 per cent rise in quarterly profit on Friday, helped by the popularity of vehicles such as the Rogue and Qashqai SUVs, and stuck to its forecast for a small gain for the full year.

Rising sales have helped Nissan make more use of its domestic car factories despite a shrinking Japan-ese market.

October-December operating profit at Nissan, held 44 per cent by Renault, came to 211.9 billion yen ($1.99 billion), up from 183.1 billion yen a year ago.

That was roughly in line with an average estimate of 213.5 billion yen from seven brokerages surveyed by Reuters Estimates.

Third-quarter net profit grew 27 per cent to 132.2 billion yen while revenue rose 18 per cent to 2.77 trillion yen.

The result was inflated by a change in the accounting period for its European and Mexican subsidiaries, Tagawa said. Stripping that out, operating profit would have fallen 7.2 per cent in the quarter, and net profit by 1.3 per cent.

For the full year ending on March 31, Nissan kept its forecasts unchanged for an operating profit of 800 billion yen and net profit of 480 billion yen, roughly in line with consensus forecasts from 20 brokerages.