Nissan full-year net profit jumps 14% to $3.8bn

Nissan said yesterday its full-year net profit jumped 14%, driven by a recovery in major markets, cost-cutting efforts and the weaker yen, and forecast further marginal improvement this year.

Japan’s second-biggest automaker said it earned 389.0bn yen ($3.8bn) for the fiscal year to March, after sales rose 20% on the previous year to 10.48tn yen.

The profit and sales gains were mainly due to “a reverse of the yen’s appreciation against the dollar, reductions of purchasing costs and growing sales,” Nissan said in a statement.

Nissan, maker of the Altima sedan and luxury Infiniti brand, said sales in Japan rose 11.1% in units for the fiscal year, while those in China jumped 17.2%.

Nissan’s sales in North America gained 12.4% with a 2.4% increase in Europe, but its sales in other regions declined 8.5%.

The figures come after rival Toyota last week posted a record annual net profit of 1.82tn yen over the fiscal year to March, nearly doubling from a year earlier. Japanese car companies have been big winners over the past year as a sharp drop in the yen inflated their repatriated profits, while sales accelerated in key markets including the US and China. Japanese automakers’ sales in China fell off a cliff in late 2012 and into last year as a Tokyo-Beijing row over disputed islands sparked a consumer boycott of Japanese brands in the world’s biggest vehicle market.

Relations remain tense, but Japanese manufacturers have reported sales are returning to pre-spat levels.