The Japanese yesterday announced their financial results for the fiscal fourth quarter and the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009 and the figures are grim. According to Autonews, while being able to report a full-year profit, Honda posted their first quarterly loss in 15 years.
We hope members of Honda's upper management have got rid of their ancient habits, otherwise this would be a very good time to start sharpening the seppuku swords.
According to a press release issued by Honda, consolidated operating loss amounted to JPY 283.0 billion or $2.91 billion at current exchange rates, a decrease of JPY 451.8 billion compared to the same period a year ago.
The quoted reasons are "decreased profit from lower revenue, the increase in fixed costs per unit as a result of reduced productions, increased raw material costs, the negative impact of currency effects caused by the appreciation of the Japanese yen and expenses related to withdrawal from some racing activities and cancellations of development of new models, more than offsetting continuing cost reduction efforts and decreased selling, general and administrative (SG&A) and R&D expenses".
The consolidated net sales also recorded a sharp drop of 41.6% compared to last year, Honda's financial experts reaching a total figure of JPY 1,783.8 billion, around $18.3 billion.
Autonews writes that for the fiscal year that ended March 31, operating profit collapsed 80.1 percent to $1.95 billion, while revenue fell 16.6 percent to $102.90 billion, the first drop in nine years. It's worth noting that even though collapsing, the profit was still there, which cannot be said about Toyota.
As we reported two weeks ago, Toyota's losses for the current fiscal year are estimated to be at around 500 billion yen ($5 billion), after the estimated operating loss, the first in decades, of 450 billion yen ($4.5 billion).
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