Japan's Mazda swings back to $341 million profit for April-December period
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TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese car giant Mazda on Wednesday said it swung back to a profit in the nine months to December as it boosted its full-year earnings forecast.
Japan's fifth-biggest automaker logged a net profit of 25.6 billion yen (S338 million) for the April-December period, reversing its net loss of 112.8 billion yen a year earlier. Sales rose 8.5 per cent to 1.54 trillion yen, it said.
It credited the results to a bounce in sales and cost-cutting after suffering a double punch from a strong yen and falling demand in key markets during the corresponding period in 2011, when manufacturers were also hit by effects of Japan's quake-tsunami disaster.
In China, Mazda sold 129,000 vehicles for the nine-month period, down 21.5 per cent from a year earlier, "but sales are on a recovery trend," it said, echoing similar comments from Toyota, Japan's biggest automaker.
