Mazda deep in the red in Q1 on quake damage

Japan's Mazda Motor said Friday it plunged to a $330 million net loss in the three months to June when production and sales were hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Japan's fifth-largest carmaker by volume said its net loss reached 25.5 billion yen, from a 2.1 billion yen net loss in the same period a year ago. The operating loss came to 23.1 billion yen, after an operating profit of 6.4 billion yen a year earlier. Sales fell 29.4 percent to 408.1 billion yen. Mazda was also in the red in the first quarter a year ago, due to one-off changes in accounting methods, but it had been enjoying rising sales since, thanks to government incentive programmes. For April-June 2011, however, Mazda's global sales volume fell 11.3 percent to 281,000 vehicles compared with the same period a year ago. Mazda was heavily impacted by the quake and tsunami that crippled supply chains in northern Japan and led to power shortages that hurt industry. In Japan, sales volume fell 31.8 percent to 35,000 units, "mainly affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake", the company said. In North America, sales volume fell 4.0 percent to 86,000 vehicles. In Europe, sales dropped 18.5 percent to 44,000 units, and in China they were flat at 53,000 units. Mazda said it expected to "turn around to profitability from the second quarter", adding that it was on course to achieve its annual earnings targets. For the year to March 2012, Mazda targets a net profit of 1.0 billion yen and an operating profit of 20.0 billion yen on sales of 2.19 trillion yen. Mazda has recently announced a plan to establish a factory in Mexico and a sales company in Brazil, while moving production from a plant in the US state of Michigan to Japan.