TOKYO: Japan's Mitsubishi Motors said Tuesday its net profit soared 60 percent year on year in the three months to September, boosted by strong sales in Southeast Asia.
Group net profit jumped to 10.1 billion yen ($127 million) from 6.3 billion yen in the same period a year earlier, the nation's sixth-biggest automaker said.
However, the figure was far lower than the quarter to June, when it logged a 20 billion yen net profit.
Overall sales fell 7.3 percent to 440.7 billion yen but revenue in Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations grew.
Shares in Mitsubishi ended up 1.44 percent at 70 yen.
Group net profit for April-September, the first half of the current business year, reached 30.1 billion yen, up 183.9 percent from the same period last year, on gains from selling securities holdings.
But half-year sales were hit by the strong yen, falling 5.2 percent to 859.96 billion yen. Operating profit fell 9.9 percent to 30.82 billion yen.
"The positive effects of steadily progressing reductions in materials and other costs could not overcome negative factors including the effect of the strong yen and increases in selling costs such as new model advertising costs," the firm said in a statement.
Mitsubishi cut its full-year sales estimate while leaving profit forecasts unchanged, citing a global slowdown, Europe's debt crisis and the strong yen.
It now expects sales of 1.83 trillion yen, down from 1.98 trillion yen projected earlier but up 1.3 percent in the previous year ended in March.
The automaker forecasts an operating profit of 80 billion yen, up 26 percent from the previous year, and a net profit of 13 billion yen, down 46 percent.
The loss incurred from the sale of NedCar, a Netherlands factory which was sold for one euro, will be booked in the second half of the financial year, a company spokesman said.
Mitsubishi is planning to cease automobile production in Europe by the end of 2012, but it was launching production of a sport-utility vehicle at a new joint venture in China.
The move comes as Japanese automakers' business in China has taken a hit from the recent flare-up of a long-running territorial dispute over a group of islands claimed by both countries. (AFP)
