Honda Q4 profit down 52%, gives no annual guidance

Honda Motor Co reported a 52% fall in quarterly operating profit and refrained from providing an outlook for the new business year as it struggles to measure the speed of its recovery after last month's earthquake in Japan.

Japanese automakers have yet to figure out how fast all of the parts makers affected by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake on March 11 will fully recover, making it difficult to give an earnings projection for the year to March 2012.

For the January-March quarter, Honda's operating profit was 46.21 billion yen (USD 562 million) , compared with an average estimate of 103.1 billion yen from 15 analysts. Fourth-quarter net profit, which includes profits made in China, fell 38% to 44.55 billion yen.

A survey of 15 analysts put Honda's operating profit for the full year to March 2012 at 394 billion yen, down from 569.8 billion yen in the business year that just ended.

As of Wednesday, Honda's shares were down 8.8% from pre-quake levels, compared with a 9.0% fall in Tokyo's transport sectors subindex .

(USD 1 = 82.220 Japanese Yen)