Mitsubishi Motors has reported a narrower net loss of 16.1 billion yen (£70.8 million) for the first half of the fiscal year, helped by favourable exchange rates and lower costs.

The loss was 47.7 billion yen (£213m) smaller than the loss Mitsubishi reported for the fiscal half to September 2005.

The smaller loss came as group sales rose 1.4T% to 1.005 trillion yen in the first half from 991.3 billion yen (£4.3bn) in the same period last year.

Mitsubishi said global retail sales volume fell by 60,000 units to 599,000 in the April-September period, though Japan sales rose 6,000 to 114,000 units.

Despite an improvement in earnings, sales targets did not meet figures predicted in April.

However, as a result of reviewing the unit sales volume targets by region, the company has opted to revise its fiscal 2006 sales volume to 1,322,000 vehicles, a reduction of 86,000 compared to the April’s figure.

Sales in Europe's growth markets are expected to grow as they did in the first half; the company has revised volume up 9,000 vehicles to 280,000 for the region.