Nissan quarterly net profit up 3.2 per cent, sales rise 20 per cent

Feb 8, 2012, 8:28 GMT

Tokyo - Nissan Motor Co said Wednesday its net profit for the October-December quarter edged up 3.2 per cent from a year earlier with its global sales rising 20 per cent.

Japan's second-largest carmaker posted a net profit of 82.7 billion yen (1.07 billion dollars) for the quarter, compared with 80.1 billion yen in the same quarter last year.

Nissan also reported a 3.6-per-cent increase in operating profit to 118.1 billion yen for the period while sales grew 10.9 per cent year-on-year to 2.33 trillion yen.

By unit, global sales rose 20.4 per cent from a year earlier to 1.13 million units for the quarter and those in North America, Nissan's biggest market, climbed 15.5 per cent to 381,003.

Nissan also saw sales in China jump 19.3 per cent to 185,801 while domestic sales surged 50.3 per cent to 153,787.

Nissan maintained its net profit forecast for the financial year through March at 290 billion yen, its operating profit outlook at 510 billion yen and sales forecast at 9.45 trillion yen.

Shares in Nissan closed up 2.38 per cent Wednesday before the release of the earnings report.

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