Honda lowers forecasts after recalls push profit down

Company now expects a profit for the fiscal year through March of $4.6 billion, down from its previous forecast for $4.8 billion

Honda Motor Co, the Japanese automaker at the center of an air-bag defect scandal, lowered its annual earnings forecast today, after quarterly profit slipped 15% due to recall expenses.

The Tokyo-based manufacturer of the Odyssey minivan, Fit subcompact and Asimo robot recorded a 136.5 billion yen (USD 1.16 billion) profit for the three months through December 2014, in line with forecasts by analysts.

Honda said it was hurt by recall expenses, mainly in North America. Honda is the automaker hardest hit by the quality woes over Takata Corp air-bags that explode. It relied on that Japanese supplier most heavily.

The company now expects a profit for the fiscal year through March of 545 billion yen ($4.6 billion), down from its previous forecast for 565 billion yen ($4.8 billion). That would mark a 5% drop from the profit reported the previous fiscal year.

Honda also lowered its global vehicle sales forecast for the full year to 4.45 million vehicles from 4.6 million. The less optimistic forecast is still better than the 4.3 million vehicles Honda sold around the world the previous fiscal year.

The massive quality problem at Takata centers on air-bag inflators that can explode with too much force, blowing apart a metal canister and sending fragments into the passenger compartment.

US and Japanese authorities have been investigating the Takata air bags. The US fined Honda $70 million, which was the largest civil penalty levied against an automaker, for not reporting to US regulators some 1,729 complaints that its vehicles caused deaths and injuries, and for not reporting warranty claims.

A blessing for Honda has been the cheap yen engineered by easy money "Abenomics" policies of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. A cheap yen helps all Japanese exporters, including Honda.

Honda was counting on the dollar costing 114 yen for the quarter, up from 100 yen the same period the previous year. Quarterly sales jumped nearly 9% to 3.29 trillion yen ($27.9 billion).

Honda has a healthy motorcycles division, especially in Asia. Motorcycle sales were up 4% in volume terms from a year earlier.

In Japan, Honda suffered a slowdown in sales after sales tax was increased in April.

Quarterly vehicle sales were up in other key regions, including the US, Europe and the rest of Asia.