Japan's Mitsubishi Motors profit more than triples

Japan's Mitsubishi Motors said Wednesday net profit more than tripled for the year to March as the global market recovers and cost-cutting measures helped offset the yen's strength. The automaker gave no annual forecast for the current fiscal year due to uncertainty over the impact of last month's quake and tsunami that left about 26,000 people dead or missing and devastated northeastern Japan. Mitsubishi Motors' net profit came to 15.6 billion yen ($191 million) for the fiscal year, up from 4.8 billion yen a year earlier. Its operating profit also nearly tripled to 40.3 billion yen, while sales jumped 26.5 percent to 1.83 trillion yen. "Our sales volume increased mainly due to an expansion of the (global) market, particularly in emerging economies as well as the impact of launches of new models," Mitsubishi Motors said in a statement. "Although we were affected by the appreciation of the yen, the net profit came to 15.6 billion yen due to the sales gain and cost-cutting effects," it said. "However, the Great East Japan Earthquake caused serious damage to the region," it said. "Like many other auto-related firms, our company has been affected in terms of supply chain." Mitsubishi Motors said it was unable to provide an earnings outlook for the year to March 2012 "due to the extreme difficulty in producing rational forecasts considering the impact of the earthquake." Global retail sales volume for the fiscal year totalled 1.105 million vehicles, up 15 percent from the previous year.