Japan’s Honda Motor said on Friday its fourth-quarter operating profit grew more than six fold from a year earlier, helped by a weak yen and strong vehicle sales.
Japan’s second-biggest automaker by volume saw quarterly operating profit come in at 305.6 billion yen ($1.96 billion), versus an average estimate of 248.3 billion yen in a poll of nine analysts by LSEG.
Operating profit in FY24 reached a historical high of 1 trillion 381.9 billion yen and the operating profit margin was 6.8%.
In FY25, we will steadily proceed with dedicating resources towards electrification and aim to achieve operating profit of 1 trillion 420 billion yen and an operating profit margin of 7%, which is one year ahead of our original target.
Also, in FY24, cash flows from operating activities excluding research and development expenses, which indicates the source of future investment, increased by 1 trillion yen from the previous fiscal year to approximately 3 trillion yen.
The car maker has announced a dividend of 68 yen in FY24 was 28 yen more than the previous fiscal year. For FY25, Honda said it will conduct a share buyback of 300 billion yen – a record high.
