French car giant PSA Peugeot Citroen has slumped to a first-half loss of €962m as the global economic crisis hit the industry.
The news came as Japan's Nissan reported a first-quarter loss, rival Honda reported a 96% dive in profits for its latest financial quarter and Daimler recorded a Q2 loss over €1 billion.
PSA ended 2008 with a net loss of €343m as the economic crisis decimated car sales. It said it was maintaining its forecast for a 12% fall in the European vehicle market this year, with 'the beginning of a recovery seen towards the end of 2010'.
It repeated its forecast for a 2009 operating loss of between €1 billion and €2 billion. First-half sales were down 21.8% at €23.5 billion.
Meanwhile, Honda said its net profit dived 95.6% from a year earlier in its first financial quarter to the end of June to 7.56 billion yen ($80m).
At the same time it upgraded its outlook for the full financial year to March, forecasting a net profit of 55 billion yen - still down almost 60% from the previous year.
Honda is seeking to accelerate the launch of its hybrid vehicles to ride a wave of interest in fuel-efficient cars, helped by government tax incentives. Earlier this year the company rolled out a revamped model of its flagship fuel-sipping Insight, which was the best-selling hybrid in April in Japan before being overtaken by rival Toyota's remodelled Prius.
Also in Japan, Nissan suffered a net loss of 16.5 billion yen ($175m) in its first quarter to the end of June. Nissan, which is cutting 20,000 jobs to cope with the global economic crisis, reiterated its forecast to end the full year to March 170 billion yen in the red.
'2009 continues to be a tough year, but we are beginning to see positive results from the measures taken under our recovery plan,' said Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn, who also heads the group's French partner Renault.
German firm Daimler posted a sharp second quarter net loss and said it expected a clear decrease in sales globally for all 2009.
The maker of Mercedes Benz autos suffered a net loss of €1.06 billion on sales that plunged by 25% to €19.6 billion but predicted the situation would begin to gradually improve.
Analysts had forecast an even bigger net loss of €1.34 billion but the results still looked dismal compared with a profit of €1.4 billion posted by Daimler in the three months to June 2008.
In the first quarter, it had a net loss of €1.28 billion.
The group did not give a precise outlook for its 2009 net result but did say in a statement that its operating profit was 'expected to improve gradually in the course of the year.'
