Mitsubishi Loss Widens in 1st Half

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said Monday that its losses grew in the first half of the fiscal year as the Japanese automaker struggled to recover from an auto defect scandal that had sent sales plunging. The company lowered its sales expectations for the year and said it expected a larger full-year loss than previously forecast.

The Tokyo-based company reported a group net loss of 146.2 billion yen ($1.4 billion) in the six months that ended Sept. 30, worse than the 80.2-billion-yen loss in the same period a year earlier.

Sales plunged 11% to 1.07 trillion yen ($10 billion) from 1.21 trillion yen. The loss and sales figures were worse than what the company had forecast in May.

The company did not break out quarterly figures.

Mitsubishi has been fighting to win back customer trust after its image was tarnished from recurring scandals over coverups of auto defects.

In the last several months, it has announced more than 40 recalls after carrying out an investigation into systematic coverups extending back at least 25 years. The scandals continued even after Mitsubishi Motors acknowledged a coverup in 2000 and promised to come clean.

The company said recall and investigation costs totaled about 14.8 billion yen. It also spent 19.9 billion yen on measures to win back trust from drivers, including free inspections now carried out on 267,000 vehicles in Japan.

“Domestic sales continue to be in a tough situation, but we feel there are some signs of a recovery,” company President Hideyasu Tagaya said.

Sales nose-dived not only in Japan but also in North America, where the automaker’s Cypress-based importer and distributor, Mitsubishi Motors North America, is feeling the sting.

The automaker sold 646,000 vehicles worldwide in the first half, down 16% from 772,000 in the same period a year earlier. In Japan, 96,000 vehicles were sold, down 44% from a year earlier. In North America, sales fell 39% to 92,000 vehicles.