Japanese automaker Nissan said on May 9 that it expects operating profit for the current fiscal year (April 2024 to March 2025) to exceed analysts' expectations, rising 5.5% year-on-year, due to higher global sales.
In the fiscal year ended March 31, Nissan's operating profit rose 51% year-on-year to 568.7 billion yen ($3.77 billion). Operating margin also improved to 4.5% from 3.6% in the previous year. Higher volumes and a portfolio of adjusted products with higher margins were the biggest growth drivers.
Over the same period, Nissan's net profit nearly doubled to 426.6 billion yen ($2.82 billion), revenue rose 20 percent to 12.69 trillion yen ($83.87 billion), and global sales rose 4.1 percent to 3.44 million units. Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida said that the increase in performance provides a good impetus for Nissan's new medium-term plan.
Nissan expects its operating profit to reach 600 billion yen ($3.85 billion) in the current fiscal year, which begins April 1. By comparison, the average estimate of the 18 analysts surveyed by LSEG was 577.3 billion yen. Nissan also expects foreign exchange movements to boost its annual results, helping to offset inflationary pressures.
Nissan expects its global retail sales to reach 3.7 million units this fiscal year, up 7.5% from 3.4 million units in the previous fiscal year. Among them, the company expects sales from North America to increase by 13.3% year-on-year to 1.4 million units.
In China, Nissan expects its sales to increase by just 0.8 percent this fiscal year. In the last fiscal year, the company's sales in China fell 24% year-on-year to just 800,000 units.
As local Chinese brands released a range of inexpensive and software-equipped electric vehicles, domestic brands attracted consumers and quickly gained more market share. Against this backdrop, Japanese automakers, including Nissan and Honda, are struggling in the Chinese market.
At last month's Beijing Motor Show, Nissan showcased four concept models for the Chinese market and unveiled a memorandum of understanding with Baidu to jointly conduct research on artificial intelligence and "smart cars."
