Japan's second-biggest automaker Nissan returned to the black in January-March, despite the impact of a devastating earthquake and tsunami on production, as annual net profit soared more than seven-fold. Nissan President and CEO Carlos Ghosn told reporters the auto giant would return to "full and unrestricted production by October," but like its peers the carmaker skipped a forecast for the current financial year due to the quake.
World-wide sales and also those in China, Nissan's largest single market, hit record highs while sales rose in the United States and Europe, helping to offset the negative impacts of a strong yen and faltering domestic demand. Nissan's annual net profit soared more than seven times from a year earlier to 319.2 billion yen ($3.9 billion) in the year in which it began selling its all-electric Leaf car in Japan, the United States and some parts of Europe.