Nissan Quarterly Profit Up on Brisk Sales, Keeps Forecasts

Nissan Motor posted a 3.6 percent rise in quarterly operating profit on Wednesday on the back of brisk car sales worldwide and kept its full-year forecasts unchanged at the highest level among Japan's top automakers.

Japan's No.2 automaker earned an operating profit of 118.1 billion yen ($1.54 billion) in the October-December quarter, slightly below the average estimate of 122.6 billion yen from 10 analysts polled by Reuters.

Nissan reports under Japanese accounting standards, with earnings from China included in operating income. Net profit rose 3.2 percent to 82.67 billion yen.

Among Japan's three leading automakers, Nissan was fastest to recover from both the earthquake last March and flooding in Thailand that disrupted supply chains, swiftly sourcing parts from its global network. The popularity of new models such as the Rogue and Juke crossovers also helped.

For the year to March 31, Nissan kept its operating profit forecast at 510 billion yen, below the consensus forecast of 547 billion yen in a poll of 25 analysts by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It kept its net profit forecast at 290 billion yen.

Japanese market leader Toyota [TM  79.61    1.90  (+2.44%)   ] has forecast annual net profit of 200 billion yen and third-ranked Honda Motor [HMC  36.14   0.28  (+0.78%)   ] has predicted profit of 215 billion yen.

Both report under U.S. accounting rules, with earnings from China included in net income.