Mitsubishi revises forecast for 2007/08 FY

Within a day of publishing the company's financial results for the first six months of the financial year, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) has revised the forecast for the latter part of the 2007/08 financial year.

For MMC, the financial year runs from April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008 and the first six months ended with effect from September 30, 2007.

During the first half of the financial year, MMC has enjoyed a 30 per cent increase in the value of net sales (from 1,005.4 billion yen to 1,313.4 billion yen, year-to-date).

This improvement has been attributed to various factors, including the commencement of SUV exports to PSA Peugeot Citroen, escalating exports generally and a weaker Yen.

The net loss is 5.6 billion yen -- still an improvement of 10.5 billion yen, compared with last year, year-on-year.

Based on these better results and a gain of 24.3 billion yen in operating income, MMC has revised its forecast upwards for the latter half of the current financial year. It's the first time in five years that the corporation has posted operating and ordinary surpluses for the first half of the financial year.

With most of the needles pointing in the right direction, MMC has revised the forecast revenue for this financial year up by 11.1 per cent. Forecast operating income and ordinary income are both amended upward by 37.3 per cent and 56.7 per cent, respectively.