Japan’s top carmakers are on track to increase profit, buoyed by higher vehicle prices on the back of robust demand that’s making up for COVID-19-related factory halts and chip shortages. Even so, most of them appear to realize they’re not in the clear just yet.
"The more semiconductors we get, the more we can grow,” Ashwani Gupta, chief operating officer of Nissan Motor Co., said during an earnings briefing earlier this week.
Honda Motor Co. joined Nissan in upgrading operating profit forecasts for the fiscal year through March, after a rough start last year. Toyota Motor Corp. kept its forecast for ¥2.8 trillion ($24 billion) in annual operating profit, even after halting domestic output for several days in January.