Nissan Motor Co. said Wednesday its group sales expanded 13.5 percent to 6.1 trillion yen in the April-December period from a year earlier due to robust U.S. sales and continued improvements in European operations.

Nissan's global vehicle sales in the first nine months of fiscal 2004 grew 10.3 percent to 2.412 million units as just-introduced new models sold well, it said.

The automaker said its group net profit in the period rose 2.7 percent to 373 billion yen and pretax profit 3.9 percent to 611.9 billion yen.