Renault sales and profits fall on diesel, currency setbacks

PARIS (Reuters) - Renault's revenue and profits fell in 2018, hit by collapsing diesel sales, exchange-rate setbacks and a withdrawal from the Iranian market, the French carmaker said.

Revenue fell 2.3 percent to 57.42 billion euros ($64.7 billion), while recurring operating profit dropped 6.3 percent to 3.61 billion, for a 6.3 percent operating margin.

The carmaker said it was targeting operating margin of "around 6 percent" this year, a weaker goal than its previous pledge to exceed that benchmark in 2018.

Analysts had expected recurring operating profit of 3.52 billion euros on revenue of 58.1 billion, based on the median of 12 estimates from an Infront Data poll for Reuters.

Net income came in at 3.3 billion euros, down sharply from the 5.31 billion recorded in 2017.

($1 = 0.8869 euros)

(Reporting by Laurence Frost; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)