Honda cuts profit forecast by 62%

International Herald Tribune
By Bettina Wassener

HONG KONG: Honda cut its full-year forecast for net profit by 62 percent on Wednesday, the latest sign of the dramatic drop-off in demand that has hammered the global car industry and has sent U.S. manufacturers scurrying for state aid.
Honda's vehicle sales in the United States, its main market, plunged 32 percent in November from a year earlier, the most since 1981, and sales in Europe slumped 34 percent.

Toyota, the world's largest carmaker, will hold its year-end press conference on Monday and is widely expected to cut its 2009 sales forecast by at least one million vehicles, analysts surveyed by Reuters said. Toyota is also likely to follow suit with added savings measures, like shelving or canceling one or more of its dozen or so production projects.