TOKYO (AP) — Nissan reported Thursday a loss for the latest fiscal quarter as its vehicle sales sank while costs and inventory ballooned, prompting the Japanese automaker to slash 9,000 jobs.
Chief Executive Makoto Uchida said he was taking a 50% pay cut to take responsibility for the dismal results, while promising that a turnaround was coming.
Nissan Motor Corp. announced a global workforce reduction of 9,000 people, or about 6% of its more than 133,000 employees, as well as a plan to slash global production capacity by 20%.
Uchida declined to say which regions will be affected by the cuts or give specifics.
For the latest quarter through September, Nissan racked up a 9.3 billion yen ($60 million) loss, a reversal from the 190.7 billion yen profit recorded the same quarter a year ago.
Quarterly sales fell to 2.9 trillion yen ($19 billion) from 3.1 trillion yen.
Uchida acknowledged Nissan didn’t respond quickly or flexibly enough to global changes, including market tastes and soaring raw material costs.
“I take this situation very seriously,” he told reporters. “Nissan will restructure its business to become leaner and more resilient.”
Nissan models did not sell well in the U.S., one of the most lucrative auto markets in the world that's recently been dominated by Ford, Toyota and Tesla.
All aspects of Nissan’s operations and plans will be under review, Uchida said.
Nissan, based in the port city of Yokohama, reported fiscal first half sales revenue of 5.98 trillion yen ($39 billion), edging down 1% from the more than 6 trillion yen the same period last year.
Its April to September profit totaled 19.2 billion yen ($124 million), declining sharply from the 296.2 billion yen earned over the six months last year.
Nissan lowered its sales revenue forecast for the fiscal year through March 2025 to 12.7 trillion yen ($82 billion) from an earlier projection for 14 trillion yen ($91 billion).
It did not give a net profit forecast, citing uncertainty. It promised to give a profit forecast as soon as possible. Earlier, Nissan was forecasting an annual profit of 300 billion yen ($1.9 billion).
Nissan now expects to sell 3.4 million vehicles around the world in the fiscal year ending in March 2025, down from an earlier projected 3.65 million vehicles. The new number is about the same that Nissan sold last fiscal year.
Nissan said it’s appointing a chief performance officer tasked with turnaround decision-making, who will begin his job next month.
No dividends will be paid out, given the harsh results.
Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://x.com/yurikageyama
FILE - Logos at a Nissan showroom are seen in Ginza shopping district in Tokyo, on March 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A strong typhoon slammed into a northern Philippine province on Thursday as thousands were evacuated in a region still recovering from back-to-back storms that hit a few weeks ago.
Typhoon Yinxing is the 13th to batter the disaster-prone Southeast Asian archipelago in 2024.
"I really pity our people but all of them are tough,” Gov. Marilou Cayco of the province of Batanes said by telephone. Her province was ravaged by recent destructive storms and is expected to be affected by Yinxing’s fierce wind and rain.
Tens of thousands of villagers were returning to emergency shelters, and disaster-response teams were again put on alert in Cagayan and other northern provinces near the expected path of Yinxing. The typhoon blew into Santa Ana town in Cagayan province on Thursday afternoon.
The slow-moving typhoon, locally named Marce, was packing sustained winds of up to 175 kilometers (109 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 240 kph (149 mph) just before it made landfall in the coastal town of Santa Ana in Cagayan province, government forecasters said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage.
Aside from flash floods, authorities were concerned about the higher possibilities of landslides in northern mountainous region, which has been inundated by pounding rains from two previous storms.
The coast guard, army, air force and police were on high alert. Inter-island ferries and cargo services and domestic flights were suspended in northern provinces.
Tropical Storm Trami and Typhoon Kong-rey hit the northern Philippines in recent weeks, leaving at least 151 people dead and affecting nearly 9 million others. More than 14 billion pesos ($241 million) in rice, corn and other crops and infrastructure were damaged.
The death and destruction from the storms prompted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to declare a day of national mourning on Monday when he visited the worst-hit province of Batangas, south of the capital, Manila. At least 61 people perished in the coastal province.
Trami dumped one to two months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours in some regions, including in Batangas.
"We want to avoid the loss of lives due to calamities,” Marcos said in Talisay town in Batangas, where he brought key Cabinet members to reassure storm victims of rapid government help. “Storms nowadays are more intense, extensive and powerful.”
In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages and caused ships to run aground and smash into houses in the central Philippines.
In this photo provided by the Local Government Unit (LGU) of Lal-lo, workers clear a tree that fell due to strong winds from Typhoon Yinxing nin Lal-lo, Cagayan province, northern Philippines Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (LGU Lal-lo via AP)
In this handout provided by the Local Government Unit (LGU) of Lal-Lo, workers clear a road from a tree that fell due to strong winds from Typhoon Yinxing, locally called Marce, in Lal-lo, Cagayan province, northern Philippines on Thursday Nov. 7, 2024. (LGU Lal-lo via AP)
