Major Japanese firms wrapped up the latest earnings season on a high note, more than doubling their net profit in the three months to June, a new report showed yesterday.
Brokerage SMBC Nikko Securities said its review of company financial results showed combined net profits surged about 112 percent from the April-to-June quarter a year earlier, while operating profit jumped 33 percent among some of the nation’s biggest names.
A pick-up in consumer spending and a sharp decline in the yen, which makes exporters such as Toyota Motor Corp and Sony Corp more competitive overseas, were behind the booster profits, the company said.
“The profit gains were mainly due to a positive effect of the weak yen,” SMBC Nikko Securities analyst Kayoko Ota said.
“Recovering domestic demand and steady growth in North America were also major factors,” Ota said.
Ota also said the good times were likely to last with many firms raising their fiscal full-year (ending March next year) profit and sales forecasts.
“They’re expected to stay on course to recovery,” she added.
The SMBC report, which looked at nearly 500 companies on Tokyo’s broad-based TOPIX, found that manufacturers saw the biggest increases in profit.
Toyota’s earnings almost doubled to a record US$5.64 billion in the April-to-June quarter, with the firm on track to produce more than 10 million vehicles worldwide this year, it said.
The world’s biggest automaker has ramped up its bid to tap emerging markets, while key US demand has also been on the upswing, helping Toyota book ever-increasing profits over the past year.
The Camry and Corolla maker, like rivals Honda Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co, benefited from a slump in the Japanese currency since late last year as it inflates the value of income earned overseas when it is converted back into yen.
The cheaper yen helped Toshiba Corp swing back to profitability in the quarter, while the top three banks booked gains as a surge in the stock market boosted trading businesses and investment holdings.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
‘SEISMIC SHIFT’: The researcher forecast there would be about 1.1 billion mobile shipments this year, down from 1.26 billion the prior year and erasing years of gains The global smartphone market is expected to contract 12.9 percent this year due to the unprecedented memorychip shortage, marking “a crisis like no other,” researcher International Data Corp (IDC) said. The new forecast, a dramatic revision down from earlier estimates, gives the latest accounting of the ongoing memory crunch that is affecting every corner of the electronics industry. The demand for advanced memory to power artificial intelligence (AI) tasks has drained global supply until well into next year and jeopardizes the business model of many smartphone makers. IDC forecast about 1.1 billion mobile shipments this year, down from 1.26 billion the prior
People stand in a Pokemon store in Tokyo on Thursday. One of the world highest-grossing franchises is celebrated its 30th anniversary yesterday.
Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and last year announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January next year. However, on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector would do in the
RSS