Japan’s Automakers Officially Out Of The Woods. On The Average

Three Japanese automakers, Honda, Nissan, and Fuji Heavy are officially out of the woods, at least financially. The Nikkei [sub] says they “put the global financial crisis behind them, reporting net profits that surpassed those from two years earlier in the April-June quarter.”

· Honda’s Q1 group net profit: 272.4 billion yen ($3.16b), up 57% from the same period two years earlier.

· Nissan: Net profit roughly doubled to 106.6 billion yen ($1.23b).

· Fuji Heavy (Subaru): Net profit up 1300 percent (!!!) to 19.1 billion yen ($221m)

Here are the ones that didn’t make the pre-carmageddon grade:

· Toyota’s impressive 190.4 billion yen ($2.21b) net profit was 46 percent lower than two years earlier.

· Suzuki Motor posted a net profit of 15.1 billion yen ($175m), down 42 percent.

· Mazda suffered a 2.1 billion yen ($24m) net loss.

· Mitsubishi Motors ended the quarter with a net loss of 11.7 billion yen ($136m)..

Winners and losers together accounted for an aggregate net profit of 589.8 billion yen, ($6.85b), that’s 93 percent of the level from two years earlier. Let’s call it even.

Emerging countries were the savior of the industry. Toyota and Honda earned record quarterly operating profits in Asia. Emerging countries provided Toyota with 60 percent of its operating profit.