Honda lifts profit forecasts

Japan's Honda Motor said Friday it was revising up forecasts for its full-year net profit despite logging a fall of 34.5 percent for the nine months to December.

The country's third-largest automaker revised up its full year net profit to 695 billion yen ($6.3 billion) from the previous forecast of 675 billion yen, while also lifting annual sales to 15.85 trillion yen from 15.80 trillion.

For April-December, net profit fell to 623.3 billion yen "due mainly to the impacts of the enactment of the US tax cuts and Jobs Act in the same period last year", Honda said.

Operating profit fell 3.2 percent mainly because of decreased sales revenue, as well as increased sales and administrative costs and "negative foreign currency effects", it added.