Last month’s annualized sales amounted to just 9.5 million units but Honda CEO Takeo Fukui says he expects to United States auto market to improve during the second half of the year. Fukui says the market has already shown signs of recovery and will continue on into next quarter.
Honda has been hit hard by the collapse in U.S. sales – the Japanese automaker’s largest market – but is confident things have begun to turn around. “I’m definitely expecting the second half to turn up, and on an annual basis I think this year will be the floor,” Fukui told Automotive News.
Honda ’s fourth quarter profit slid from a profit of 25.4 billion yen during the fiscal year 2007 to a net loss of 186 billion yen – roughly $1.95 billion – last year, but Japan’s number two automaker managed to stay in the black. Most of Japan’s other automakers posted heavy losses, including Toyota . Honda is forecasting a 71 percent drop in profit this year, but is still expecting a net profit of 40 billion yen.
Although Fukui sees a market recovery this year, he’s wary that we will see a 16 million unit year anytime soon. Instead, Fukui sees the market returning to a level of 13-14 million units a year – about the same as last year’s 13.2 million unit mark.
