Nissan Upgrades Full-Year Forecasts to See Turnaround

Tokyo, July 28 (Jiji Press)--Nissan Motor Co. <7201> revised upward on Wednesday its earnings forecasts for the year through March 2022, now expecting to achieve a turnaround after suffering two straight years of net loss. The major Japanese automaker projected a consolidated full-year net profit of 60 billion yen, against the previous forecast of a net loss of 60 billion yen. Nissan raised the sales estimate to 9,750 billion yen from 9,100 billion yen, and the operating profit projection to 150 billion yen from zero. While the company has been forced to reduce output against a backdrop of global semiconductor shortages, sales have been picking up due to recoveries for the U.S. and other foreign economies. Nissan is also expected to reap the benefits of cost-cutting measures, such as reductions in labor costs and sales management costs, which the company undertook by the previous fiscal year. For April-June, Nissan reported an operating profit of 75,682 million yen, against the year-before loss of 153,926 million yen, and a net profit of 114,531 million yen, against 285,589 million yen in loss, on sales of 2,008,247 million yen, up 71.0 pct from a year earlier. In the fiscal first quarter, Nissan's global vehicle sales rose over 60 pct to 1,048,000 units, rebounding from a pandemic-triggered slump on the back of strong recoveries in the North American and Chinese markets. The effects of chip shortages on production "will be most apparent in the second quarter" of July-September, Nissan President and CEO Makoto Uchida said. "We will pay attention to whether the situation will worsen further." Nissan Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta said that the automaker will not be heavily affected by the European Union's plan to ban sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles, including hybrid models, in 2035. [EARNINGS] END