Honda Latest to See Hybrid Sales as Main Global Savior

Hybrid vehicle sales are keeping Honda’s profits motoring as the automaker reports a 23% rise in the first financial quarter of 2024.

Booming hybrid sales, especially in Japan and the U.S., are joined in aiding Honda’s performance by a weak yen and higher product pricing, Reuters reports.

The automaker's results reflect a similar success reported by hybrid technology champion Toyota in its Q1 results.

Japan's second-biggest carmaker says quarterly operating profit amounted to 484.7 billion yen ($3.3 billion) in the April-June period, compared with an average estimate of 472.4 billion yen predicted by analysts.

Honda says its global vehicle sales grew 2% to 1.9 million over the first six months of the year, largely due to a 9% rise in sales in the U.S., its top market.

In contrast, it faced heavy headwinds in China where it saw sales slump 23% to 416,000 vehicles. It maintains its full-year operating profit forecast of 1.42 trillion yen, while slashing its sales outlook for China by 21% to 840,000 vehicles.

Here, Honda is suffering from heavy price cutting by domestic new entrants to the auto market and a faster-than-expected decline in the market for internal-combustion-engine vehicles, forcing it to consider closing one of its factories in China.

At the same time, it plans to begin production later this year at two new battery-electric-vehicle plants in the country run through two joint ventures with Chinese automakers. It is also teaming up with Nissan and Mitsubishi in sharing in-vehicle software and cooperating in BEV production.