Nissan's fiscal fourth quarter profit jumped 46% on stronger sales and a favourable exchange rate that offset declines in China over a bitter territorial dispute.
Nissan reported a profit of 110 billion yen ($1.1 billion) for the three months from January to March, up from 75.3 billion yen the same time the previous year.
Quarterly sales gained 6% to 2.87 trillion yen ($28.7 billion).
That rounded out a record vehicle sales year for the Yokohama-based maker of the March compact, Infiniti luxury models and Leaf electric car at 4.9 million vehicles globally, up 1.4%.
The rise came despite the problems in China where boycotts and anti-Japanese riots broke out last year.
President Carlos Ghosn was upbeat about growth in months ahead, targeting global 5.3 million vehicle sales for the fiscal year through March 2014, an increase of nearly 8%. He noted Chinese sales had started to recover in the first three months of the year compared to the same time a year earlier.
Sales were up 5.4% in the US to 1.14 million vehicles for the fiscal year to March 2013, but sales in China dipped 5.3% to 1.18 million vehicles. Sales were also down in Japan but were strong in other markets such as Thailand, Brazil and the Middle East.
''Fiscal 2012 was marked by both successes and challenges for Nissan," Ghosn said. "We ended the year with a sound balance sheet, record global sales, an improved brand and an expanded presence in critical growth markets."
He welcomed the "Abenomics" policies of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that are centered on an aggressive flooding of monetary markets with cash, a move that has buoyed the dollar, a big plus for Japanese exporters like Nissan.
But Ghosn, who has long criticised what he called an overvalued yen, characterszed the dollar at 100 yen, reached for the first time in four years in Friday's Tokyo trading, as "neutral."
Nissan gained 30 billion yen ($300m) in operating profit for the latest fiscal year over a favoyrable exchange rate. The dollar has gained about 20% since Abe took office.
Nissan is projecting a 420 billion yen ($4.2 billion) profit for the fiscal year through March 2014, on 11.2 trillion yen ($112 billion) sales.
It reported a 342 billion yen ($3.42 billion) profit for the fiscal year ended March 31, up 0.3%. Annual sales edged up 2.3% to 9.6 trillion yen ($96 billion).
Some analysts say that, with the cheaper yen, Japanese car makers will be better able to compete in overseas markets against powerful rivals like Hyundai of South Korea that have been grabbing market share away from them.
A falling yen not only helps raise the value of overseas profit of the Japanese by billions of yen, but it also tends to bring down product prices. Because Japanese cars tend to be of relatively good quality, they will appear as bargains, once prices come down.
Other Japanese automakers, such as Toyota and Honda also reaped benefits from the cheaper yen for their latest earnings. Toyota's quarterly profit more than doubled to 313.9 billion yen ($3.2 billion), while Honda's quarterly profit rose nearly 6% to 75.7 billion yen ($765 million).
