Nissan Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn said revenue at Japan's second-biggest automaker may reach ¥10 trillion ($123 billion) in 2012, depending on the strength of a currency he compared to an oversize ape.
"There is a 1,000-pound gorilla that's unpredictable, which is going to be the level of the yen," Ghosn said in an interview at the Beijing auto show Monday. "All the Japanese car manufacturers are suffering from it, but for the rest of it, business is going very well."
Nissan, Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. are poised to report higher earnings this fiscal year, according to analysts' estimates, as they restore production hobbled by natural disasters in Japan and Thailand during 2011. While the yen has weakened the most in a basket of 10 developed-nation currencies this year, it's still about 40 percent stronger than it was in the months prior to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcy in 2008.