Nissan: Full-year profit jumps 14% to $3.8bn

Japanese auto giant Nissan said Monday its full-year net profit jumped 14.0 percent, boosted by a weaker yen, cost-cutting efforts and brisk sales. Japan's second-biggest automaker said it earned 389.0 billion yen ($3.8 billion) for the fiscal year to March, after sales rose 20 percent on the previous year to 10.48 trillion yen. The figures come after rival Toyota last week posted a record annual net profit of 1.82 trillion yen over the fiscal year to March, nearly doubling from a year earlier. Japanese car companies have been big winners over the past year as a sharp drop in the yen inflated their repatriated profits, while sales accelerated in key markets including the US and China. For the current fiscal year, Nissan forecast slight gains in both profit and sales, projecting a 405 billion yen in net profit and sales of 10.79 trillion yen in the year to March 2015.