Nidec Corp. has raised its annual outlook and said it will buy back shares after reporting quarterly profit and sales that topped analysts’ estimates, underscoring strong demand for motors by automakers and other companies seeing higher sales due to the pandemic.
The Japanese manufacturer raised its operating income forecast for the current fiscal year, which runs to March, to ¥155 billion ($1.5 billion), up from the prior outlook of ¥140 billion and an average projection by analysts of ¥149 billion. The ¥50 billion share repurchase, lasting a year, represents as much as 0.68% of the company’s stock, the firm said in a statement Monday.
Nidec, a key supplier in the global electric-motor industry, is attracting increased attention amid the shift to electric vehicles. The company is betting that the skills it has developed building high-quality, precise and affordable motors, which have made it the supplier of 85% of the world’s hard-disk drives, can be used to equipped automakers with traction motors, the most important component in EVs after the battery.