Honda Q3 Group Profit Up 5 Per Cent

Honda Motor Co Ltd said on Wednesday it achieved a five per cent rise in its group net profit for the three months to December, as runaway sales in North America made up for a slump at home and in Asia. Hondas group net profit total net profit at Honda and its units across the globe calculated according to US accounting rules rose 5.3 per cent from a year earlier to 65.20 billion yen ($517 million) in the October-December quarter of 1997. In the previous quarter, the profit grew about 30 per cent year-on-year. On a pretax profit basis, Hondas group profit scored a year-on-year rise of 26 percent in the third quarter. In the nine months to December, its group net profit grew 22 percent to 191.70 billion yen, while pretax profit jumped 33 percent to 344.61 billion yen.