TOKYO — Nissan Motor Co.’s operating profit nearly doubled in the latest quarter as cost controls, better pricing power and lower incentives bolstered results despite the ongoing semiconductor crisis, prompting the automaker to lift its full-year profit outlook.
Operating profit surged to 52.2 billion yen ($453.5 million) in the automaker’s fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, from 27.1 billion yen ($235.4 million) a year earlier, COO Ashwani Gupta said on Tuesday while announcing the company’s financial results.
Nissan also bounded back to a quarterly net income of 32.7 billion yen ($284.1 million), reversing a net loss of 37.8 billion yen ($328.4 million) the year before, the automaker in a statement.
Revenue dipped 0.8 percent to 2.21 trillion yen ($19.2 billion) in the October-December period, as global sales sank 16 percent to 904,000 vehicles on the back of crimped production.
In the just-finished fiscal third quarter, North American sales declined 19 percent to 262,000 units. But regional operating profit shot up nearly sixfold to 85.1 billion yen ($739.4 million) in the period, driven by lower incentives, a better mix of models and a favorable exchange rate.
Sales in Europe fell 18 percent to 90,000 vehicles, while the regional operating profit there slid 33 percent to 2.0 billion yen ($17.4 million) from a year-earlier loss.
Gupta confirmed a Japanese media report that Nissan will stop developing new internal combustion engines for Europe from the advent of Euro 7 admissions standards, as consumers there shift to electric vehicles. But Gupta said Nissan will continue developing combustion power plants for other markets where they make sense. He pointed to the redesigned Z car and Rogue crossover as the kind of gasoline vehicles still in hot demand in certain markets.
For the full fiscal year ending March 31, Nissan upgraded its operating profit forecast to 210.0 billion yen ($1.82 billion), from an earlier outlook of 180.0 billion yen ($1.56 billion).
Beneficial foreign exchange rates contributed to the brighter outlook.
Achieving the target would erase an operating loss of 150.7 billion yen ($1.31 billion) from the previous fiscal year, and deliver an operating profit margin of 2.4 percent
Despite the improved outlook, Nissan kept its sales goal unchanged at 3.8 million vehicles for the current fiscal year. That represents a 6.2 percent decline from 4.05 million vehicles sold the year before, as Nissan cuts back on production due to the global semiconductor shortage.
Nissan had originally forecast 4.4 million units of sales this fiscal year, and Gupta said that the microchip bottleneck had cut roughly 600,000 vehicles from Nissan’s worldwide volume.
