Honda's profit rises on weak yen, strong motorcycle sales
Honda's fiscal second quarter profit rose nearly 14% as a weaker yen boosted its overseas earnings and strong demand raised sales of its vehicles and motorcycles
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Honda Motor Corp. said Wednesday that its fiscal second quarter profit rose nearly 14% as a weaker yen boosted its overseas earnings and strong demand raised sales of its vehicles and motorcycles.
Tokyo-based Honda reported a July-September profit of 189.2 billion yen, or $1.3 billion. Quarterly sales rose 25%.
Honda Group sold nearly 5 million motorcycles in the last quarter, up from 4.2 million motorcycles a year earlier. It sold 970,000 vehicles, up from 917,000.
The maker of the Civic, Accord and Clarity fuel cell models said in a statement that its operations were hurt by a semiconductor shortage that has slammed the global auto industry. Rising costs for raw materials also ate into profits.
But the company was helped by favorable currency fluctuations, price increases, reductions in sales incentives and growth in its motorcycle sales.
A weak yen boosts the earnings of Japanese exporters like Honda when translating overseas revenue into yen. The U.S. dollar was at about 110 yen a year ago but is now trading at nearly 150 yen.
Honda lowered its sales forecast for the fiscal year ending in March to 4.1 million vehicles from an earlier estimate of 4.2 million vehicles. That’s still better than the 4 million in vehicle sales Honda recorded the previous fiscal year.
Honda also lowered its motorcycles sales forecast for the full fiscal year to 18.4 million motorcycles, down from an earlier projected 18.56 million motorcycles. Honda sold 17 million motorcycles in the previous fiscal year.
Honda now expects to earn 725 billion yen ($5 billion) for the fiscal year, up from an earlier projection for 710 billion yen ($4.9 billion) profit, and an improvement from the 707 billion profit racked up the previous fiscal year.
___
Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama