Fukui: Sees Improved Sales & Talks New Hybrid System

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Honda's Fukui says Worst is Over; Sees Improvement in 2nd Half
May 17, 2009 - 3:30 pm ET

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Honda Motor Co.'s earnings will hit bottom this year and improve beyond that as demand in the United States returns in the second half, CEO Takeo Fukui said.

"The last quarter was the nadir, and things will gradually start to improve'' this quarter and next, Fukui said in an interview.

"I'm definitely expecting the second half to turn up, and on an annual basis I think this year will be the floor."

Battered by a sales slump in the United States, its biggest market, Japan's No.2 automaker lost a net 186 billion yen ($1.95 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2008-09 after posting a profit of 25.4 billion yen a year earlier. For the fiscal year ending March 2010, Honda has forecast a 71 percent drop in net profit to 40 billion yen.

A key element in the earnings deterioration across the industry in the past year has been the sales slides in the United States -- 18 percent last year and 37.4 percent through April of this year. Honda's decline hasn't been as steep as the market's.

Fukui said he believed the U.S. market had also reached a bottom and is projecting a recovery in the latter half of 2009.

"A 10 million-unit (a year) market is abnormal for the United States," he said. "I think there's latent demand for 13 to 14 million units annually, and we'll get back to that level at some point."

U.S. vehicles sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 9.5 million in April. Last year's total sales fell to 13.2 million from 16.2 million in 2007.

Chrysler Concern

One worry was the possible disruption if Chrysler LLC , which filed for bankruptcy protection last month, were to dump its cars in inventory on the market, Fukui said.

While Fukui said he hoped that Chrysler's bigger rival, General Motors, would avoid Chapter 11, he said Honda -- and probably the rest of the industry -- was making necessary preparations for the possibility.

"You can't just assume that it won't happen and hope for the best," he said.

Honda was the only top Japanese carmaker to stay in the black last year as Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. lost money. Executives have cited Honda's profitable and world-leading motorcycle business as a major boost.

But Fukui said another factor that gets little mention was the vast drop in warranty and other costs last year after a lengthy process of fixing quality issues finally began to bear fruit.

"The initiative started during my predecessor's tenure, and it's been a long and painstaking process. We finally saw the results of that last year," said Fukui, who will step down as CEO next month after six years at the helm.

"The improvement will grow from here onwards."

Vehicle Strength

Honda's more visible strength lies in its lineup heavy in smaller and fuel-efficient cars -- the most recent addition being the Insight hybrid.

Fukui said response to the Insight has been good so far in the United States, while Honda was focusing on trying to meet better-than-expected demand in Japan.

Honda is scheduled to roll out a family of low-cost hybrid cars over the next few years including a gasoline-electric version of the Fit subcompact, and expects about one-tenth of its global sales to be hybrids by around 2015.

Honda's hybrid system has the benefit of being simple and cheap, with a single electric motor that assists the engine. A disadvantage is being underpowered when mounted on bigger cars, unlike Toyota's hybrid technology.

To overcome that shortcoming, Fukui said Honda was developing various types of hybrid technologies including a twin-motor system that "would be better than Toyota's" that could eventually power bigger models such as the Odyssey minivan or Pilot SUV.

"We'll have more variations," Fukui said, adding that Honda was also working on a dual-clutch transmission to possibly be matched up with a future hybrid system.