Honda says that it is looking optimistically at 2012 and 2013, even as a string of unfortunate events forced it to slice its profit estimates to its lowest level since the global recession began.
The automaker says that its operating profit for the fiscal year ending March 31 should be around 200 billion yen (about $2.6 billion), which is well below the estimates provided by analysts earlier this month and it’s about 65 percent lower than the figures Honda posted last year. Overall, Honda says that its motorcycle arm and its financial division will help keep overall net profit to about 215 billion yen, but that’s still a 60 percent drop compared to last year.
The Japanese firm has struggled to recover from last March’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan and its assembly plant in Thailand was by far the hardest-hit of any automaker.
‘Any way you look at it, this has been an extremely tough year for Honda,” CFO Fumihiko Ike said at a news conference earlier today.
Honda’s profitability was most obviously hurt because of its hefty production cutbacks. For the first time in eight years, Honda produced fewer than 3 million cars globally. Its 2.91 million production figure represented a bigger decline than any of the other Japanese brands that were hit by the disasters in March. Like other Japanese brands, Honda has also struggled to overcome a strong domestic currency that cuts into export profitability.
Bullish on 2012, 2013
Honda says that its once-inundated plant in Thailand should be back up to full speed production in April and that its plants in Japan are finally coming back on line.
As a result, the automaker says that it should be able to hit 4 million global sales in the fiscal year that begins on April 1 of this year.
But there’s still some uncertainty in Honda’s largest market, North America, where its redesigned Civic has seen middling sales. If buyers don’t flock to redesigned Accord and CR-V models set to hit the market later in 2012, Honda might be forced to take another look at its estimates.
