Nissan Performance Report: Profit fell 70% last quarter, and the company now expects to sell fewer cars
The rest of Nissan's turnaround plan is also off track, said incoming CFO Stephen Ma. He said Tuesday that the company expects to post operating profit of $ 150 billion ($ 1.4 billion) for the year, down from its original outlook to $ 230 billion ($ 2.1 billion).
These warnings came after Nissan reported operating income of 30 billion yen ($ 275 million) for the three months ended in September, a 70% decline over the previous year, which also missed a broad-based market estimate. Analysts polled by Refinitive had expected Nissan to report 47.5 billion yen ($ 435 million) in operating profit.
Revenues for the last quarter fell 6.6% to 2.63 trillion yen ($ 24 billion), in line with analysts' expectations.
There have been several executive shivers since Ghosn's radiation. Nissan appointed Makoto Uchida as its new chief last month, after the previous CEO Hiroto Saikawa resigned after admitting that he and other top executives in Nissan were overpaid as part of a share-related payment plan. Earlier this month, the company appointed Ma as the new chief financial officer and said several veteran executives resigned.
Nissan, like other global automakers, also faces serious industry challenges. Slower-than-expected growth in the global economy has slowed sales, and the US-China trade war is still a major risk for producers. New emission standards, partly driven by the climate crisis, have also disturbed the industry.
Nissan has also moved to lose its market share everywhere, and the problem is particularly bad in the US and Europe. During the six months ended September, the company sold 679,000 cars in the United States, giving it 7.8% of the market. It had 8.1% the year before. In Europe and Russia, the market share fell almost 20% year over year.