Japan's Honda Motor on Tuesday said it posted a fourth consecutive annual net profit thanks to strong sales and despite currency losses but warned of lower earnings in the current year. Honda, ranked number three in Japan, said net profit rose 4.7 percent to 486.20 billion yen (4.53 billion dollars) in the year to March, matching its own forecast. Sales rose 6.0 percent for a fifth straight annual record of 8.65 trillion yen, with pretax profit up 2.3 percent to 656.81 billion yen as operating profit rose 5.1 percent to 630.92 billion yen.
"Honda realised an all-time record for sales ... due to increased sales in each business area," the company said in a statement.
"Operating income increased due to increased profit from higher revenue and cost reduction efforts despite the negative effect of the depreciation of the US dollar," it said.
A weaker dollar trims Japanese exporters' repatriated earnings at the same time as makes their products more expensive overseas.
For the current year to March 2006, Honda forecast its net pretax profit would fall to 450 billion yen and 615 billion yen respectively but projected operating profit to rise to 650 billion yen on sales of 9.30 trillion yen.
By region, sales in Japan rose 5.3 percent to 4.14 trillion yen in the year to March, while North America rose just 0.7 percent to 4.71 trillion yen as Europe gained 10 pc to 1.04 trillion yen. "With the introduction of new models, we should be able to hit the target of 730,000 units (in the current fiscal year)," Honda executive vice president Koichi Amemiya said.
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