ラベル financial performance の投稿を表示しています。 すべての投稿を表示
ラベル financial performance の投稿を表示しています。 すべての投稿を表示

2010年8月1日日曜日

Japanese Companies Recover Profitability to 90% of Before Recession

Osaka – Sunday, August 1, 2010

Nikkei, Japanese newspaper specialized in business/economy, reported today that emerging market business is driving drastic revenue and profitability recovery of listed Japanese Companies. According to financial announcements for April – June 2010 (Q1 for most Japanese companies), profit is five times that of April – June 2009, clearly showing the recovery of manufacturers such as automobile and consumer electronics supported by demand of emerging market and cost reduction. Profitability has recovered to the level of 90% before the worldwide economic crisis in 2008, and the Q1 profit is 29% of the total estimated profit for fiscal 2010.

However, there are many risks such as high yen and ambiguous worldwide economy trend; therefore, many companies are extremely cautious in their forecast of their latter 2010 performance.

1. How did Nikkei come to the conclusion?

Nikkei collected and analyzed financial data of 559 listed companies (excluding financial and new companies) that are:- a)fiscal year ends in March; b)financial announcement for 2010 Q1 has been made by July 30. These 559 companies cover 36% of total in number and 62% in market value.

2. What is the overall conclusion?

Total sales covering all industry increased by 14% from previous year (PY). This was because after the worldwide recession, companies reviewed which business to focus and initiated cost reduction, to streamline revenue structure. Then with demand increase of emerging markets their sales increased, and therefore their total profit reached 3.83 trillion yen, which is fives time that of PY, and 46% increase from Jan – Mar 2010. Compared with April – June 2008 before the worldwide recession, sales has recovered to 86% and profit to 93%.

3. How are specifics?

April – June Profit of Major Japanese Listed Companies (in billion yen)
(Source: Nikkei, translated by the author)


Industry / Company Name / 2008 / 2009 / 2010
Automobile / Honda* / 224.2 / 5.4 / 256.1
Automobile / Nissan / 82.4 / -26.1 / 155
Electronics / Panasonic* / 119.2 / -51.7 / 84.3
Electronics / Sony* / 62.9 / -32.9 / 78.9
Electronics / Hitachi* / 83.6 / -80.8 / 144.2
Machinery / Komatsu* / 92.7 / 8.7 / 50.1
Iron & Steel / Nippon Steel / 144 / -56.6 / 61.8
Trading / Mitsubishi Corp* / 181.9 / 61.9 / 180.5
Real Estate / Mitsui Fudosan / 22.3 / 28.8 / 13
Maritime / NYK Maritime / 65.1 / -27 / 38.1
* GAAP: Generally Accepted Accounting Principle

1) Sales increase: electronics

60% of total 3.7 billion yen profit recovery was contributed by consumer electronics and automobile. Panasonic’s EBITA (Earning Before Interest, Taxes and Amortization) improved by 130 billion yen because sales were strong in most businesses including digital consumer electronics such as flat panel TVs and home appliances. China sales increased by 75%.

Sony’s business in emerging markets such as of flat panel TVs and PCs increased by 40%.

2) Sales increase: automobile and parts/components

Profits of automobile and parts/components recovered by almost 700 billion yen, which made it in total profit instead of loss. Nissan’s worldwide sales increased by 30%. Small car business was strong and their sales in China increased by almost 70%.

Komatsu’s China sales of construction machinery increased by almost 80%.

3) Restructuring

Restructuring effects such as fixed and variable cost reduction is also prominent. Toshiba had cut 430 billion yen of personnel and R&D cost in 2009. Toshiba’s sales were less than 2008 but operating profit was the highest.

4) Non-manufacturers

Profit of trading companies was 2.3 times that of 2009 attributing to high resources. For maritime and container ship businesses were strong and came back to black from red. Retailers and real estates decreased their profit because of weak domestic business.

4. What is the outlook for latter half of 2010?

Asia is assumed to remain the engine of further business/financial performance recovery of Japanese companies for fiscal year ending March 2011.

1) Cautious outlook

Despite recent drastic profit recovery, it is interesting to note that many companies are cautious in their outlook for latter half of 2010 (fiscal year ending March 2011). This is even though April – June profit of many companies was over 25% of total profit estimation for the whole year, such as automobile and parts/components that reached 45.7%.

2) Reasons for cautious outlook

(1) High yen and ambiguious worldwide economy

Yen has been high; recently it was been in just over 80 yen / USD. High yen is a negative factor for Japanese manufacturers.

In addition, there is a sense of economy recession in the U.S, and Europe, and risk of change in Chinese economy. NYK Maritime executive points out there is a risk that Europe’s economy anxiety spreads worldwide and latter half of 2010 is ambiguous. Nippon Steel executive comments that prices of raw materials and steel have not been decided yet and it is impossible to make rationale estimation for latter half of 2010.

(2) Termination of government’s economy stimulant incentives

Incentives to promote Japan domestic consumers purchasing ecological cars will end in the end of September. Also, similar incentives for consumer electronics will end in the end of December. Therefore, many executives of the industry are extremely anxious that domestic sales may fall by as much as 20% – 30%.

2010年5月15日土曜日

Financial Performance of Japanese Companies Continues to Recover

Osaka – Saturday, May 15, 2010

Nikkei, Japanese newspaper specialized in business/economy, reported on May 13, 2010, that financial performance of Japanese listed companies has been continuously recovering in total. This information also went on air in most major TV news on Friday 14. Consolidated profit for fiscal year ending March 2010 was +25% vs. previous year, which was increase in profit after 2 fiscal year, largely attributing to cost reduction. The largest contributors were consumer electronics and automobile, which improved by 3.7 billion yen in total vs. previous year.

Outlook for fiscal year ending March 2011 is of further improvement; +38% for profit vs. fiscal year ending March 2010. This is largely because revenue is expected to increase after 3 fiscal years with demand increase of emerging countries, marking phase change from recovery driven by restructure to recovery driven by demand increase. However, there are risks such as high yen and price increase in resources.

1. How did Nikkei come to the conclusion?

Nikkei collected and analyzed financial data of 767 listed companies (excluding financial and new companies) that had been announced by May 12, covering 50% in number and 80% of profit, of total companies.

2. How much the financial performance of Japanese companies recover?

In total, sales for fiscal year ending March 2010 decreased by 12% vs. previous year but turned to black with drastic cost reduction by each company after the worldwide economy crisis broke out in the autumn of 2008. Quick economy recovery of emerging countries such as China and India also contributed to their financial performance recovery. As a result, profit was better by 13% than estimation as of February 2010, meaning that financial performance of Japanese companies are ongoing with speed above expectation.

Looking by industry, 19 out of 32 recovered. The total amount of profit recovered was 2 trillion yen for consumer electronics and 1.7 trillion yen for automobile. These two industries covered up deterioration of steel, maritime trade and trading companies, and in total recovery of almost 2.4 billion yen. As for some specific companies, refer the table below.

Improvement in Financial Performance of Some Major Companies
(Source: Nikkei, translated by the author)

Company Name / Amount (billion yen)
Hitachi / 353.4
Panasonic / 353.3
Toshiba / 304.2
Toyota / 851.8
Nissan / 380.4
Honda / 174.4

3. What contributed to the recovery?

The biggest contributor was restructuring including fixed and variable cost reduction. Honda reduced sales cost by over 420 billion yen, resulting in double in profit even though the revenue decreased by 14%. A vice president of Honda commented that the biggest reason for revenue recovery is the fact that they made much effort in cost reduction. Cost reduction of Toyota totaled 1 trillion yen (negative effects of the worldwide recalls were within their expectation) and 880 billion yen for Panasonic.

4. What is the outlook for fiscal year ending March 2011?

Sales for fiscal year ending March 2011 is estimated to go back to growth by 7% from the previous year, which is expected to contribute to further profit increase. Also, financial performance recovery is estimated to expand to 25 industries from 19. With recovery in purchase order from Asia, machinery and precision instrument also are estimated to return to black.

5. What are the 3 possible risks?

The first possible risk is high yen. This is a negative factor for export-oriented companies (most Japanese manufacturers are export-oriented); increase in cost of resources leads to cot up in wide a range of industries. For example in the case of Nippon Steel, if purchase cost of iron and steel stays at high level of April-June, it would result in 450 billion loss unless it can be reflected in pricing.

The second possible risk is negative effect from the fact that demand stimulation measures of each country aimed at driving sales of digital consumer electronics and automobiles is to come to end. For example, in Japan, incentives are given to consumers who purchase green products and services specified by the governments (e.g. automobile, consumer electronics, reforming house) which has been contributing to stimulating consumer spending but this incentive is to end soon.

The third possible risk is negative effect of weak economy of Greece on worldwide economy recovery.

6. What is the requirement for further recovery despite the possible risks?

Further improvement is possible if performance recovery effect is expanded to household and equipment investment sectors. This is because the profit outlook for 2010 is 60% of the peak, which was in 2008, meaning that there are some room for further recovery.

2010年2月7日日曜日

Toyota’s Additional Recall of Prius

Osaka – Sunday, February 7, 2010

Nikkei, specialized in economy/business and politics, reported on February 5 that Toyota decided to perform recall its hybrid vehicle of Prius in the U.S. and Japan totaling 270,000 cars due to brake problem. Toyota will soon officially report to MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) of Japan and Department of Transportation of the U.S., and to officially announce recall in Japan in a few days. Nikkei also reported on February 7 that Toyota decided to recall Prius sold to approximately 60 other countries and regions totaling 30,000 cars. The new Prius has been launched aggressively in emerging countries and therefore the number of countries and regions is that the new Prius are sold is 1-1/2 times that of the older Prius.

There had been over 70 claims from Japanese customers that under certain situation brakes of Prius does not function as expected, and Toyota is to revise control software, the root cause. Toyota is now investigating whether similar problem in other hybrid vehicles or not. In addition, Toyota also had started recall of other models such as Corolla in the U.S. due to accelerator pedal problem, which resulted in recall of 4,450,000 million worldwide.

1. How and why Toyota finally decided to perform recall of Prius?


Mr. Akio Toyota, Toyota’s president discussed over phone on February with Mr. Lahoud, Secretary of Transportation of the U.S., in which he clarified that Toyota will put safety measures as its first priority. Toyota’s stance had been that brake problem is not of the structural defect; however, it finally decided to perform recall from comprehensive judgment of impact on many factors including financial performance and brand.

The Prius that is to be recalled was launched in May 2009. Improvements have already made for those produced from January 2010 thus 170,000 cars marketed in Japan and 100,000 cars marketed to the U.S. will be recalled. Toyota also is thinking of starting to recall and/or voluntary recall in other countries and regions.

2. What is the problem and how recall is to be performed?

It is that brake does not function as expected under certain circumstances attributing to trouble in control software of ABS (Anti-block Brake System) that is designed to minimize skidding when road is slippery after rain etc. The software will be revised at Toyota’s dealers.

Other hybrid vehicles such as SAI and Lexus HS250h launched after the new Prius also adopts the same brake system. Toyota may well decide to recall the control software for these models, too.

3. How the brake problem came into light?

Toyota had some claim from a few customers in the autumn of 2009, and started to investigate in earnest then the claim soared in the end of the year. At the press conference held on February 4, Toyota emphasized that the reason for realizing and coming up with countermeasures took time is “sufficient time was required to investigate root cause, and they did not mean to hide claims they had from customers”.

4. What is the possible negative effect of the additional recall?

With additional recall of total of 4,450,000 cars worldwide attributing to accelerator pedal problem, following are a just a few possible negative effects on Toyota.

1) Deterioration in Toyota brand and its reputation

Toyota’s reputation and brand as “role model of high quality product manufacturer with extreme high productivity” is likely to go down. Toyota’s continuous improvement for LEAN production of high quality products had been studied and implemented as role model in other companies of various industries such as Panasonic (for V-shaped recovery) and production division of a pharmaceutical giant to name a few. With recent worldwide recall due to quality problem, its reputation and brand that have been built over so many years would have get negatively effected, which Tobak recently discussed this in his blog article “Can Toyota Avoid Brand Disaster?” (2010), and many readers left comments.

2) Negative effect on EV car sales

Prius is mostly sold in Japan as the image leader model that drives its environment /EV car strategy. Prius recall is surely to have negative effect on sales.

3) Further be behind in financial performance recovery

With negative effect of Prius recall, Toyota’s bottom line may remain in red, and with negative effect to its sales, its may further delay in recovery compared to its competitors.

Toyota is already behind recovering its financial performance, as mentioned in the previous article Japanese Manufactures Drastically Recovering with External Demand, and the additional Prius recall may well make Toyota further delay in recovering its financial performance. According to Nikkei’s article on February 5, Toyota announced on February 4 that its consolidated bottom line (GAAP) for fiscal year ending March 2010 is expected to be 80 billion yen (vs. -436.9 billion yen for previous year), even though it was originally expected to be -200 billion yen, attributing to automobile sales recovery and cost reduction. However, this estimation does not include negative effect of Prius recall.

Sales is expected to be 18.5 trillion yen which is -10% from previous year but is +500 billion yean from original estimation. Consolidated sales unit have been increased by 150,000 units from the original plan to 7.18 million units.

Toyota is to declare 170 – 180 billion yen for worldwide recall cost attributing to accelerating pedal problem, which is the reason that operating profit is expected to be -20 billion yen although it is to improve by 330 billion yen from the original plan. It is by reduction in corporate tax and earnings from dividend that Toyota expects to return to black for the bottom line.

5. What is the biggest challenge for Toyota?

Toyota, that has become the largest automobile maker in the world by drastic globalization, faces challenge of combining globalization and quality assurance. The following are the risks that Toyota has in performing recalls, all of which are about this challenge.

1) Recall system has not been established in all countries and regions.

Although most of the accelerating pedal and brake problem recalls are to be done in western countries, recalls are also to be done in the Middle East and Latin Americas as well. In some cases in these countries, recall system has not been established in such countries, and therefore Toyota needs to be flexible in performing smooth recalls.

2) Relationship with Toyota and software learning level are not uniform worldwide.

For both recalls software will be revised at Toyota’s dealers, which means relationship with Toyota and of software learning level of local dealer staff are key, but both varies from country/region to country/region. Therefore, Toyota needs to investigate method of software distribution and announcement to customers meeting local situation and needs, and compose manuals accordingly. With globalization, much countermeasures and procedures are required to fulfill smooth recall.

3) Risk also lies in component procurement.

With worldwide sales doubling in 10 years at 2007 (at the peak) to 8.43 million units, Toyota’s business partners of suppliers also diversified, meaning higher risk in high quality components to assure high quality. In fact, some experts point out that one of the root cause of problem since last autumn lies in difficulty in quality control under such situation.


6. What Toyota has already done as countermeasure?

Toyota already established a global quality committee led by President Toyota, being fully aware of the difficulty of embedding DNA of “quality first” mindset and culture in all parts of such a large global organization. Toyota is to challenge combining globalization and high quality, the requirement to be competitive in globalizing business environment, and recover its brand, reputation and financial performance. President Toyota clarified his stance of continuing with its global strategy of “local production with high local content”.


References:-

Tobak, Steve (2009) Can Toyota Avoid Brand Disaster?
http://blogs.bnet.com/ceo/?p=3745