TOKYO: Japanese car giant Nissan on Thursday said net profit rose 14 percent in April-June as sales in North America soared while a weaker yen boosted its bottom line.
But the country's second biggest automaker also warned that sales to China, the world's biggest car market, tumbled while demand in recession-riddled Europe was also weak.
For the three months to June, Nissan said it earned 82 billion yen or $821 million, up from 72 billion yen in the same quarter a year earlier.
Sales came in at 2.51 trillion yen, Nissan said, compared with 1.89 trillion yen in the same period last year.
It added that owing to an accounting change in its reported results with the Tokyo Stock Exchange which removes a Chinese joint-venture from the figure, sales amounted to 2.23 trillion yen.
The automaker, part-owned by France's Renault, left unchanged its forecast of a 420 billion yen net profit for the fiscal year to March 2014.
Like rivals Toyota and Honda, which report their results next week, Nissan has benefited from a sharply weaker yen, which makes them more competitive overseas and inflates the value of repatriated foreign income.
Nissan said sales to the US market soared 20 percent to 306,000 vehicles in April-June as it prepares for a string of new product launches including its Rogue sport utility vehicle and luxury Infiniti brand's Q50 sedan.
It also resurrected its budget Datsun brand this month to woo a new generation of cost-conscious buyers in emerging markets.
Nissan, which in 1981 killed off the brand that was a favourite of legions of Western drivers, has launched a "next-generation" of the car to penetrate high-growth developing economies, including India.
Despite the upbeat quarterly results, Nissan saw a 3.3 percent year-on-year decline in unit sales to 1.17 million vehicles, as sales in China tumbled about 15 percent.
"Market conditions were challenging in the first quarter, but our results were in line with our prior expectations," Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn said.
"We anticipate robust contributions from our new product launches in the second quarter and beyond. Nissan is on track to deliver its full-year guidance."
The firm has not fully recovered from the impact of a consumer boycott of Japan-brand goods in China, as a long-running diplomatic dispute over a chain of East China Sea islands flared anew last year.
Japanese firms saw sales in the world's biggest vehicle market plunge and many closed factories for a time as urban riots swept parts of China.
Nissan's China market accounts for about one-quarter of its overall sales, far higher than its domestic rivals.
The automaker has been working to recover lost market share as Volkswagen and US-based General Motors tried to capitalise on the boycott.
On Thursday Nissan also said demand in recession-riddled Europe remained weak.
"Nissan's improved market share in Japan and North America could not completely offset the repercussions in China of the islands dispute and sluggish economic conditions in Europe," it said in a statement.
Tatsuya Mizuno, an auto analyst of Mizuno Credit Advisory, said: "A weaker yen has helped the financial performance of automakers, but they are still affected by a deteriorating relationship between Japan and China.
"Thanks to the US economy showing some signs of recovery, the auto industry may come back to the pre-Lehman levels sooner or later."
Nissan shares closed down 0.53 percent at 1,112 yen before the results were released. (AFP)
