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Nissan lowers forecasts after global quarterly profits tumble 73%

2025-03-22 20:04:36 By

The special gold-wrapped Nissan Qashqai outside of the Sunderland plant.

Motor giant Nissan has lowered its financial forecasts after seeing profits tumble in the last quarter.

The Japanese manufacturer – which has its UK operations in Sunderland – issued results for the April to June quarter, showing a 73% drop in profit compared to the previous year, despite seeing sales edged up 3% to 2.99 trillion yen (£15.2bn). It said that, while global sales remained even compared to the same period in 2023 at 787,000 units, profits were impacted by increased sales incentives and marketing expenses to meet intense sales competition, particularly in the US.

The company’s first quarter profit declined to 28.6 billion yen (£145.6m) from 105.5 billion yen (£537.3m) the previous year. It lowered its full-year profit forecast to 300 billion yen (£1.5bn) from an earlier projection of 380 billion yen (£1.93bn). Chief executive Makoto Uchida described the results as “very challenging”.

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He said: “The reasons are clear, and we have implemented measures to recover. First, we are optimising the inventory buildup in the US market and bring VME efficiency with a focus on quality of sales. Then, from the second half we aim to maximize sales of new and refreshed models to achieve the revised forecast of sales volume and profit.”

As well as improving its inventory to help sales and profits recover in the second half of the year, it said new models are also in the pipeline.

The group expects to sell 3.65 million vehicles around the world in the year ending March 2025. In the last full year Nissan sold about 3.4 million vehicles worldwide.

Nissan’s stock fell on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after the gloomy results were announced, finishing down nearly 7%.

The maker of the Nissan Qashqai and Juke has been focusing on a sales growth strategy called The Arc based on electric vehicles, but its performance is ailing in key markets such as the US and China.

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