Honda Motor has announced an almost seven-fold profits increase in the latest quarter from a year earlier, helped by increased sales in India and China.
The maker of the Insight hybrid and the Civic and Accord cars posted a better than expected net profit of 134.6 billion yen for its third fanancial quarter to the end of December, up from 20.2 billion yen the same time the previous year.
Along with robust sales in the rest of Asia, cost-cutting helped to boost the group's bottom line, offsetting an 11.5% drop in revenue in the quarter to 2.24 trillion yen.
For the full financial year which ends next month, Honda raised its net profit projection to 265 billion yen from 155 billion, and its revenue target to 8.53 trillion yen from 8.45 trillion.
Honda was the only one of Japan's top three car makers to post a profit for the financial year to March 2009, outperforming Toyota and Nissan which suffered heavy losses.
Like other Japanese carmakers, Honda is pinning hopes on sales of fuel-efficient cars to help it recover from the fallout of the global downturn.
It suffered a setback last week when it recalled 646,000 vehicles worldwide due to a fire risk, in a fresh blow to Japanese makers' reputation for quality after a series of massive recalls by world number one Toyota.
Honda is to recall nearly 3,000 cars in Ireland to check driver door window switches as part of a worldwide recall.
John Donohoe of Honda said all Jazz cars sold here from 2002 to 2009 have to be checked because of a potential concern with the electric window switch in the driver door. The switch could short circuit if contaminated with liquid.
