AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)02/08 Report--

2019 has been a difficult year for any car company, as global car sales fell for the second year in a row and the biggest, with total global sales of 90.3 million vehicles down 4.3 per cent from a year earlier. Against this backdrop, many car companies have seen a decline in profits, including Toyota, the world's largest carmaker.

According to the financial results of the third quarter (October 1-December 31, 2019) released by various car companies a few days ago, there has been a decline in varying degrees, and almost no one has been spared. Among them, the profits of Toyota and Honda among Japanese brands declined slightly, while Nissan, Mazda, Subaru and Mitsubishi all showed a large degree of profit decline.

According to Toyota's third-quarter results released on February 6th, the company's profit in the September-December quarter fell to 654.4 billion yen from 676.1 billion yen in the same period last year, down 3.2% from a year earlier, and its cumulative net income was 7.5445 trillion yen. compared with 7.8015 trillion yen last year, the operating profit margin was 8.7%. Toyota said this was mainly affected by weak global car sales.

Although Toyota sold 2.69 million vehicles worldwide in the third quarter of last year, a decrease of 10, 000 compared with the same period last year, Toyota's global sales totaled 8.14 million in the first three quarters, an increase of 140000 over the previous year, and is expected to exceed forecast by 10.7 million in the fiscal year ending March 2020. Toyota's operating profit reached 2.0588 trillion yen in the first nine months, up 6.2 per cent from a year earlier.

Honda's profit fell relatively sharply compared with Toyota's third quarter, with operating profit of 166.6 billion yen in the October-December period, down 2.1 per cent from 170.1 billion yen a year earlier, according to the report. Honda earned 3.7475 trillion yen in revenue in the third quarter, down 5.7% from 3.9736 trillion yen last year, while profit before interest and tax was 206.7 billion yen, down 8.9% from 226.9 billion yen last year.

Affected by its global sales, global car sales fell 11.4 per cent from October to December last year, down 11.4 per cent from a year earlier to 3.809 million units in March-December, down 3.8 per cent from a year earlier. As a result, operating profits fell in the first three quarters (March 2019-December 2019), with cumulative profits of 639.2 billion yen, down 44.7 billion yen from 684 billion yen in the same period last year, and 6.5 per cent lower than the same period last year.

Although Nissan has not released its latest three-quarter results, according to its previous results, its operating profit in the second quarter was 30 billion yen, which has fallen sharply by 70% in the same period. Nissan's net profit in the first half (April-September) was 65.4 billion yen, down 73.5% from a year earlier. Operating profit and net profit have fallen to their lowest level in nearly a decade.

Sales have also experienced a global decline, with global sales of 5.1762 million vehicles for the whole of 2019, down 8.4 per cent from a year earlier. Except for the good performance of the Chinese market, it fell 1.1%. The US and European markets fell more sharply, down 9.9% and 17.2% respectively from the same period last year. So much so that Nissan cut its full-year 2019 profit forecast to its lowest level in 11 years, with expected revenue of 10.6 trillion yen, 6.2 per cent lower than expected.

Mazda also saw a profit slump with Nissan, where operating profit fell 76 per cent to just 6.5 billion yen in the third quarter, while net profit fell 37 per cent to 15.8 billion yen. In fact, Mazda's reported profit data has been declining for many months, mainly due to varying degrees of decline in sales in the global market. According to the data for the fiscal year (March-December), the Japanese market is down 7% from the same period last year; the North American market is down 5% from the same period last year; the European market is up 11% from the same period last year; and the Chinese market is down 10% from the same period last year, more than the North American and Japanese markets. So much so that Mazda decided to re-examine its sales forecast to 1.5 million vehicles by March 31, 2020, down 4 per cent from the previous fiscal year.

Mazda's operating profit is expected to be 60 billion yen in the quarter ended March 31, down 27% from a year earlier. Net profit is expected to reach 43 billion yen, down 32 per cent from a year earlier.

Although Mitsubishi and Subaru car sales volume is not large, but both also showed a large decline in the third quarter, or even losses. According to Mitsubishi Motors' financial results for the third quarter of 2019, it posted a net loss of 14.4 billion yen and an operating income loss of 6.6 billion yen in the third quarter (October-December). Mitsubishi Motors said it was its worst quarterly result since 2016, dragged down by falling sales in China, Japan and Southeast Asia and a stronger yen. At the same time, Nissan and Renault were thrown into chaos under the influence of Ghosn's arrest, while Mitsubishi Motors remained largely in shadow.

According to data released by GAC GROUP, GAC-Mitsubishi sold a total of 133016 vehicles in 2019, down 7.64% from the same period last year, and did not meet the target set at the beginning of 2019.

Subaru's third-quarter operating profit fell 42%, third-quarter operating profit fell to 57.8 billion yen, and net income fell 42% to 43.4 billion yen. Revenue for the quarter fell 2.3 per cent to 888.9 billion yen.

On the sales side, sales in the US fell 5.2 per cent to 183700 vehicles in the three months to December 31, while sales in western Europe more than doubled to 12700, while Japan's home market fell 28 per cent to 26700. But Subaru maintained its profit outlook for the fiscal year ended March 31. Subaru's operating profit is up 21% to 220 billion yen.

Generally speaking, in the face of the depressed market environment in 2019, the revenue of various car companies is mixed, and car companies such as Subaru are still in a high state of revenue even though the global market is small, while Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors are severely affected by negative news. Although Toyota and Honda have raised their global annual car sales forecasts, the two car companies have a certain market share in China, and they are still not too optimistic in the face of the impact of the current epidemic.

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