Japanese carmaker Nissan posted a better-than-expected first-quarter operating profit on Monday, as improvements in controlling costs and a weaker yen offset lower sales volumes and higher raw material prices.
Operating income for the three months ended June totalled 77.9 billion yen ($497 million), a fourth consecutive quarter of profit and beating a 7.5 billion yen profit LSEG poll forecast and a 79.1 billion yen loss in the same period a year earlier.
“Global industry challenges, particularly in China and the Middle East, have affected parts of our business,” CEO Ivan Espinosa told reporters, adding that “signs of progress” in the quarter included sales growth in the US and Japan. Nissan, battered by years of scandal and turmoil, has sought to restore profitability on a sustainable basis. Espinosa, who took the helm in April 2025, has slashed jobs, manufacturing capacity and the number of cars Nissan produces.
Although a sharp decline in the value of the yen has helped Japan’s fourth-largest automaker by inflating the value of earnings from abroad, it is grappling with new challenges. Raw material prices have risen in the wake of the Iran war and last week’s deadly quake forced it to suspend output at two plants on Japan’s southern Kyushu island.
Espinosa said this was expected to reduce output by about 5,000 vehicles. Nissan, like other legacy automakers, also faces intense competition from Chinese electric-vehicle makers in regions like Europe and Southeast Asia.
The automaker maintained its full-year operating profit forecast of 200 billion yen, despite lowering its global retail sales forecast by 5 per cent to 3.15 million vehicles.
Nissan said it remained confident about the United States, where sales rose 10 per cent in the quarter and accounted for more than a third of global vehicle sales. Espinosa highlighted the coming US launch of the Rogue e-Power hybrid SUV, calling it Nissan’s most important vehicle launch of the year because it would help it compete in the growing hybrid market and reduce reliance on incentives by retaining customers seeking electrified vehicles. Nissan cut its forecast for China sales by 18 per cent to 580,000 vehicles, citing a slowing economy and the shift towards new-energy vehicles, which picked up due to a rise in fuel prices after the outbreak of the Iran war.
Chief Financial Officer George Leondis said the conflict was now expected to reduce first-half profit by about 20 billion yen, up from a May forecast of less than 15 billion yen, largely due to higher logistics costs.
Nissan has mainly been impacted by rising aluminium and copper prices.
