Honda: China Troubles Will Cost Us $1 Billion
The boycott of Japanese goods in China , triggered by a dispute over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, hit Japanese automakers where it hurts most: In the pocket-book. Honda cut its profit forecast for the fiscal year to March to 375 billion yen ($4.7 billion) from its earlier estimate of 470 billion yen ($5.9 billion), Reuters says.
In September, China sales of Toyota dropped 48.9 percent, those of Honda -40.5 percent, and those of Nissan 35.3 percent. Today, Honda revised its sales forecast down to 4.12 million vehicles from 4.3 million vehicles for the current fiscal, Reuters says.
The Japanese business calendar is the automakers’ biggest enemy. The Japanese fiscal year goes from April 1 to March 31. The boycott started in September, and is expected to be felt for some six month – assuring maximum impact on the books of Japanese automakers. Honda said today they hope things will get back to normal after the February holidays.
Honda announced quarterly results today. More profit forecasts are expected next week when Toyota and Nissan will present quarterly results on Monday and Tuesday.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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It's about time politics, alliances and attitudes begin to damage the Japanese automakers. It's been too long now they've been 'untouchable.'
According to the WSJ, the billion cut in forecast is not from the drop in China alone, but mostly from higher costs associated with North American and other Asian markets. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204840504578085712501067192.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection Given how Honda is scrambling to refresh their critically panned Civic in the US that isn't surprising. Operating income for North America tanked 44%. It also had to spend more money in ads and incentives to clear out older Accords for the new Accord launch.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I can (sort-of) understand boycotting Japanese products in China, but smashing, crushing and burning other people's property? That's just ridiculous. And the most-ironic bit is that it actually hurt China worse than Japan.
I thought that the animosity between these two countries goes back a long ways before this dispute over islands. I read somewhere that Japan dislikes China so much they won't even let their citizens into the country on Visas to do the most grueling manual labor jobs.