Crisis-hit Japanese automaker Nissan on Tuesday slashed its full-year forecast for both sales and profit as it struggles with weak demand in Japan, the US and Europe, as well as fallout from the arrest of former boss Carlos Ghosn.
Nissan downgraded its net profit forecast to 110 billion yen ($1 billion) for the fiscal year to March 2020, compared with an earlier estimate of 170 billion yen. Full-year sales are now estimated at 10.6 trillion yen, down from a previous forecast of 11.3 trillion yen.
Nissan blamed the poor outlook on weak first-half earnings, a strong yen, an uncertain global outlook and the stagnation of the car industry in general. Incoming chief financial officer Stephen Ma said: “Sales in China outpaced the market but sales in other key regions including the US, Europe and Japan underperformed in those markets. This resulted in the overall decrease of our market share.” Net profit for the six months to September plunged 73.5 percent to 65.4 billion yen, the worst first-half result since the global financial crisis a decade ago.
“Nissan is in a very severe situation at a time when competition in the global auto market is further intensifying,” said Satoru Takada, auto analyst at TIW, a Tokyo-based research and consulting firm. It was Nissan’s first earnings announcement since the appointment last month of Makoto Uchida as new chief executive, elevating the insider heading the firm’s China unit as it overhauls its leadership after the Ghosn scandal.