10:38 am, November 6, 2020
Japanese car manufacturer Honda reported that profits rose last quarter despite a drop in sales and the effects of the pandemic on its global business.
Honda released its results for the last quarter this morning, which revealed that it had sold 1.25m cars in the quarter, up from 1.24m in the same period last year, while motorcycles fell by 631,000 units compared to the same period.
However, the Tokyo-based company said its July-September operating profit was 282.9bn yen (£2.1bn), up 28.5 per cent year-on-year, despite sales revenue falling by 2.1 per cent to 3,651.3bn yen (£26bn).
Honda said it carried out aggressive cost cuts that involved a ‘fundamental review’ of its operations.
The situation was also improving from earlier this year, when lockdowns and other problems related to Covid-19 caused disruptions of some production and an inventory crunch.
Senior Honda manager Kohei Takeuchi said a lot of the damage to sales likely came from the pandemic but he was hesitant to blame the entire decline on Covid-19.
Executive vice president Seiji Kuraishi told reporters Honda is bullish on shifting its line-up to ecological models to keep up with the global efforts to curb carbon emissions and global warming.
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