Suzuki net profit up 30.6%

Japan's Suzuki Motor said Thursday its net profit rose 30.6 percent to 24.5 billion yen ($312 million) for the three months to June as brisk domestic sales offset the impact of a strong yen. Sales rose 6.2 percent from a year earlier to 644.8 billion yen and operating profit jumped 39.4 percent to 35.6 billion yen for the April-June quarter, said the motorcycle and small car specialist. "The group was able to increase the operating income by covering the factors of income decrease such as decrease of overseas sales and the impact of the exchange rate with the factors of income increase such as increase of Japanese domestic automobile sales and cost reduction," it said. It left unchanged its full year forecast, projecting 70 billion yen in net profit and 120 billion yen in operation profit on sales of 2.6 trillion yen for the fiscal year to March 2013.