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Mitsubishi Motors Corp's U.S. unit -- the
most profitable arm of the troubled automaker -- said on Friday it was
heading for a fourth year of record profits in 2002 and planned to
expand its sports utility vehicle line-up.
"We're off to our fourth record year,"
Pierre Gagnon, President of Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America, told
reporters.
Healthy sales of the Lancer sedan and greater brand awareness due to
better marketing have provided good momentum on top of a sports utility
vehicle launch in August, he said.
Gagnon added that combined sales for January and February had climbed
some 24 percent to 57,500 vehicles.
The U.S. market is the overwhelmingly the main source of income for
restructuring Mitsubishi, Japan's fourth largest auto maker. The
American market provided about 60 billion yen ($450 million) in
operating income in the last business year when the automaker had an
overall operating loss of 73.9 billion yen.
Mitsubishi, which is 37 percent owned by DaimlerChrysler , has come far
in its U.S. restructuring efforts since 1997, but analysts said it still
needs to do more.
"They have gotten better but that's largely a comparison with how awful
they were before," said Tatsuo Yoshida, auto analyst at Deutsche
Securities.
"And they are profitable but its still not good enough," he said, noting
that the division's operating margin of 3.7 percent was much lower than
that of other Japanese automakers.
The as-yet unnamed sports utility vehicle, to be launched in August, is
a version of the Airtrek released last year in Japan, where it has been
a resounding flop.
Mitsubishi has, however, modified the SUV to make it higher off the
ground and given it more SUV characteristics.
The changes, combined with growth in the sports utility segment has
Mitsubishi forecasting average annual sales of 40,000 vehicles for the
SUV during its four- to five-year lifecycle.
One year from now, Mitsubishi aims to have four sports utility vehicles,
up from two.
In addition to the U.S. version of the Airtrek, it will have a
re-designed Montero, its full-sized SUV, and another small SUV.
Both will be launched this summer. Mitsubishi will also continue to sell
the Montero sports. |