Honda Motor Co said on Friday it would further cut vehicle production in North America as it adjusts to plunging automobile demand.
Tokyo-based Honda is reducing production by another 119,000 vehicles for its fiscal year ending March 31, bringing expected production for the fiscal year to 1.3 million units.
Honda spokesman Ed Miller said the cuts will take place at five of Honda’s seven plants in the US and Canada. Employees at the plants will be given other tasks or can take paid or unpaid vacation time, he said. No layoffs will result from the cuts, he said.
Another Honda spokesman, Ron Lietzke, said production will be scaled back at the company’s engine plant in Anna, Ohio, and its transmission plant in Russells Point, Ohio.
Honda, the second-largest Japanese automaker, has been hurt by the global auto industry downturn, a product of slowing economic growth and tight credit markets around the world. Earlier this month, the automaker said its US sales fell 32 percent last month and 5 percent for the first 11 months of the year.
The company’s latest production cuts come on top of previous reductions of 56,000 vehicles for North America announced earlier in the fiscal year. Last month, Honda said it was cutting production in Japan and Europe by 61,000 vehicles.
Separately, Japanese auto giant Toyota is likely to suffer a US$1.1 billion loss for the second half of the current fiscal year because of a stronger yen and a global industry slump, news reports said yesterday.
Toyota Motor Corp is likely to incur an operating loss of some ¥100 billion (US$1.1 billion) for the six months to March next year, the Asahi Shimbun and Kyodo News said.
It would be Toyota’s first interim operating loss since the company introduced US accounting standards in 1999, Asahi said.
Last month, Toyota revised downward its net profit forecast to ¥550 billion in the current year to March, down from the ¥1.25 trillion previously projected and a decline of 68 percent from the previous year.
But the news reports said Toyota would further downgrade its sales and earnings projections as the company was battered by a sharp decline in global auto sales and the yen’s continued appreciation against the dollar.
Toyota assumed a foreign exchange rate of ¥100 against the dollar for the October to March period, but the dollar has fallen to around ¥90 due partly to concern about the future of the troubled US automakers.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors