Honda hails profits jump

Honda’s fourth-quarter profit rose nearly 6% as the Japanese car giant’s recovery from floods in Thailand the previous year offset recent sales losses in China.

Honda Motor Co reported a quarterly profit of 75.7 billion yen (€585m) today, up from 71.5 billion yen (€552m) in the same period the previous year.

Quarterly sales jumped 14% to 2.74 trillion yen (€21.1bn).

The weak yen has also been good news for Japanese exporters like Honda.

For the fiscal year ended March 31, the maker of the Odyssey minivan, Acura sedan and Asimo robot reported a 367 billion yen (€2.83bn) profit, up a solid 73.6% on the previous year.

It is expecting to do even better for the financial year to March 2014, with a 580 billion yen (€4.5bn) profit.