Crisis-hit Nissan chops forecasts, net profit worst for a decade

Crisis-hit Japanese automaker Nissan Tuesday slashed its full-year forecast for both sales and profit as it struggles with weak demand in Japan, the US and Europe, as well as fallout from the arrest of former boss Carlos Ghosn.

Nissan downgraded its net profit forecast to 110 billion yen ($1 billion) for the fiscal year to March 2020, compared with an earlier estimate of 170 billion yen. Full-year sales are now estimated at 10.6 trillion yen, down from a previous forecast of 11.3 trillion yen.

Nissan blamed the poor outlook on weak first-half earnings, a strong yen, an uncertain global outlook and the stagnation of the car industry in general.

Incoming chief financial officer Stephen Ma said: "Sales in China outpaced the market but sales in other key regions including the US, Europe and Japan underperformed in those markets. This resulted in the overall decrease of our market share."