Suzuki forecasts profit rise as demand for fuel-efficient cars increases

• Source: Xinhua
• [17:28 May 10 2010]
• Comments

Suzuki Motor Corp. on Monday forecast a moderate rise in annual operating profit as Japan's fourth largest automaker is well-placed to benefit from a global trend towards smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles and growing demand from India.

For the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2011, Suzuki forecast an operating profit of 80 billion yen ( $874 million dollars) -- a 0.8 percent increase from the 79.36 billion yen ( $856.29 million ) it made last year. 

Additionally the firm said it expects its net profit to rise 3.8 percent to 30 billion yen ( $323.7 million ).

Suzuki's operating profit in the final January-March quarter totaled 29.5 billion yen ($318.30 million), compared
with a profit of 10.45 billion yen ($112.75 million) booked a year earlier. 

Fourth-quarter net profit came to 13.4 billion yen versus a profit of 5.8 billion yen a year ago, on rising sales of its
minivehicles including its Kei, Lapin, Splash and Swift models, the automaker said. 

As of March Suzuki expanded its capacity in India to a million units a year and a will add a further 250,000 units to its production output from April 2012, the automaker said.