Nissan announces net income fall

Nissan has today announced that its consolidated net income, after tax, totalled just over £250 million for the first quarter of the 2008 fiscal year.

This is down 42.8 per cent compared with the same period a year ago, blamed mainly on a reduction in operating profit driven by the negative impact of foreign exchange rates with the Yen.

Nissan sold 936,000 vehicles in the April-to-June period of 2008, a rise of 6.9 per cent compared to the same period in 2007.

In North America, sales amounted to 330,000 units, a rise of 1.9 per cent. In the United States, they were down 1.5 per cent in a market which was, overall, down by 12 per cent.

The company's market share grew in the US by 0.7 percentage points (up to 6.6 per cent), whereas in Japan, sales were down to 148,000 units (a fall of 2.2 per cent).

European sales remained steady at 156,000 units and the general overseas markets saw sales up by 23.6 per cent to 302,000 units.

Despite these increases in sales volume, Nissan's net revenue did fall 4.1 per cent to 2.3 trillion yen (£11 billion), due to the problem of foreign exchange rates.

Operating profits were down 46.1 per cent, driven by these rates and 'residual value risk'. The operating profit margin worked out at 3.4 per cent, while ordinary profit was down 45.5 per cent to just under £400 million.