Mitsubishi Profits Triple

[bigpoppanils]

Mitsubishi Says Fiscal Profits Tripled

Associated Press - April 25, 2003

Motor Trend

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. reported Thursday its profit tripled this past fiscal year as its sales revenue rose for the first time since 1997. Profits at Mitsubishi Motors, which is turning around its business under an alliance with DaimlerChrysler AG of Germany, totaled a company record 38 billion yen ($317 million) for the fiscal year ended March 31, up from 11 billion yen the previous year.

Global sales jumped 10 percent to 3.96 trillion yen ($33 billion), up from 3.2 trillion yen a year earlier, according to preliminary results. The company said sales gain reflected a change in the accounting period for its overseas subsidiaries.

Final results will be announced May 26, the Tokyo-based company said.

Mitsubishi, Japan's fourth biggest automaker, is trying to repair its damaged brand image here. Sales have sunk since a scandal surfaced in 2000 involving its systematic cover-up of auto defects for more than two decades.

Passenger car sales in Japan plunging 12.3 percent to 354,000 vehicles in fiscal 2002. But the subcompact Colt launched in March was getting off to a promising start, the company said.

But Mitsubishi sales surged in North America for the fourth straight year, rising 6.6 percent to 360,000 vehicles in fiscal 2002 over the previous year.

Expansion was supported by sales in Canada, a market entered in September, and sales this year are likely to be further boosted since the company began selling in Mexico in January, it said.

Passenger car sales declined 4.6 percent in Europe but picked up 7.3 percent in the rest of the world, including Asia outside Japan.

Worldwide car sales totaled 1.563 million, inching up 0.5 percent from 1.557 million.

As part of its revival plan, Mitsubishi Motors has carried out deep cost cuts under its partnership with DaimlerChrysler, trimming jobs and closing plants. It posted a huge loss for recall and restructuring costs in the fiscal year ended March 2001 but returned to profitability the following fiscal year.

The automaker spun off its truck division and set it up as a separate company in January. DaimlerChrysler, which owns 37.3 percent of Mitsubishi Motors, owns 43 percent of Mitsubishi Fuso, Japan's top truckmaker.

"The successful spin-off of our truck and bus operations will enable MMC to focus on passenger cars to achieve further growth and profit in the future," Mitsubishi Motors chief executive Rolf Eckrodt said in a statement.

Copyright 2003 Associated Press.

[joeg]

well OF COARSE they're profits are tripling... they've used the 4g63 engine from 1989 with a similiar transmission for 15 years and 4 cars that all made a ton of money.... talk about smart R&D....

[joeg]

hell, they'd probably make more money if they had only made those cars...

they should scrap their current lineup right now and just produce the following:

Evo's

Eclipses (the real ones, not the new ones)

GVR4's (the galant vr4 that had the 4g63 turbo & AWD)

and i guess if we're bringing back cars... the 3kgt with a diet...

if they stuck to selling those 4, they'd stop losing money on all their other stupid pieces of junk...

although they should put a little more work into the evo so it can compete with the STI, and leave the gvr4 to compete with the wrx...

in my opinion the current USDM evo is just a glorified gvr4 that costs WAYYYY too much money for nothing....

the STi is a REAL competitor... and if mitsu doesn't do something quick, they're going to get SMASHED by it...

the STi made the evo look like a fucking joke at the auto show...