By Alex Ho
Investing.com - Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. (T:7201)’s shares in Japan slumped 9.5% on Friday in Asia after the Japanese automaker reported its first quarterly loss since 2009.
For its latest three-month period, Nissan posted an operating profit of 23 billion yen, compared with the estimated 59 billion yen. Quarterly sales fell 18% to 2.5 trillion yen, also missing analysts’ prediction for 2.7 trillion yen.
The company said it is cutting its full-year profit outlook to 85 billion yen, down from an earlier estimate of 150 billion yen. Nissan also scrapped its year-end dividend payout to investors.
“Unfortunately, our business performance has worsened more than we anticipated, and there’s no letting up on investing in the future,” Chief Executive Officer Makoto Uchida said at a press conference. “In order to invest in growth, we ended up with this dividend.”
The company’s share prices last traded at 514 yen, their lowest on an intraday basis since July 2009.