Nippon Steel forecasts current year net profit to nearly halve

TOKYO : Nippon Steel Corp said on Wednesday that its annual net profit rose 8.9 per cent to 694 billion yen ($5.1 billion) for the year ended in March thanks to higher margins after price increases, but forecast a slump in profit for the current year.

The results beat the company's own profit forecast of 670 billion yen.

For the business year to March 2024, Japan's biggest steelmaker expects its net profit to fall 46.7 per cent to 370 billion yen, falling short of a mean forecast of 416.6 billion yen by 11 analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.

The weaker profit was forecast due to an expected appraisal loss on its inventories in light of lower prices of steelmaking raw materials as well as restructuring losses, the company said.

Nippon Steel also said it will spend an additional 90 billion yen to boost its output capacity of high grade non-oriented electrical steel sheet at two of its domestic steel works.