Muscular half-year results from Honda underline its status as the world’s dominant bike manufacturer. BDN financial editor Roger Willis reports.
In the first six months of its current fiscal year to 30 September, Honda’s revenue from motorcycling activities grew by 7.4% to £7.602bn. Associated operating profit was 20.2% up at £1.23bn. Operating margin improved from 14.5% to 16.2%. Â
And it would be a mistake to assume these figures are a mere sideshow in overall Honda automotive and aeronautical operations. Although bikes contributed just 13.9% of total group turnover, they accounted for 34.5% of all operating profits. The company also acknowledged that an increase of more than 20% in those profits was largely attributable to surging motorcycle and scooter sales in Asia.
As usual, wholesale shipment numbers were astounding. Across the period, some 10.667 million Honda-branded bikes were produced and distributed, a 7.3% rise. Wholly-owned subsidiaries were responsible for 7.148 million of them. The rest were made by joint-venture affiliates — of which by far the biggest is Astra Honda in Indonesia.
Of the headline tally, 9.664 million were sold in Asian markets, a 7.1% improvement. Within Asia, an averaged 8% growth to 7.821 million machines was credited to four leading countries. India topped the pile, 4.8% up to 3.296 million. Indonesia stacked on 14.1% at 2.468 million. Vietnam added 12.1% to 1.318 million. Only Thailand was on the back foot, dropping by 2.3% to 740,000.
Other emerging regions, principally Latin America, were 14% up to 608,000. However, developed-market performance was mixed. Japanese domestic sales recovered sharply by 23.8% to 104,000. Europe rose by 5.2% to 141,000. But North America was 8% down at 150,000.
Honda is maintaining its full-year volume forecast of a 6.6% increase to 20.85 million, finally crossing the 20 million bikes barrier.   Â
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