However, European sales were down marginally by 0.6%, to 540,945 units sold. Nissan sold a record 3,569,295 vehicles in total.
Net revenues totalled 9.428 trillion yen (£47.8bn), up 9.9%.
Operating profit amounted to 871.8 billion yen (£4.42bn), up 1.2%, while the company’s operating profit margin came to 9.2%. Ordinary profit amounted to 845.9 billion yen (£4.3bn), down 1.1%.
Carlos Ghosn, Nissan president and CEO, said: “Nissan delivered a solid performance in 2005 despite the many challenges facing the global auto industry including higher raw material prices, higher energy costs, higher interest rates and higher incentives.
“Although we had few product introductions, we continued to grow our global sales driven by the attractiveness of our existing products and sound business fundamentals.”
Ghosn said 2006 would be ‘a year of two distinct halves’ for Nissan, citing that growth would be hard to achieve in the first half of the year. However, he said a product launch offensive in the second half of the year would make ‘significant contributions to the business development’.
Nissan will release a total of nine new models during 2006.
Nissan will also continue with the global expansion of Infiniti, with the launch of the luxury brand in Russia in September. The brand, which is currently marketed in the US, Taiwan, the Middle East and Korea, will also go on sale in China in 2007 and across Europe during 2008.
Nissan also announced plans to invest £114.8m into a new manufacturing facility in Russia.
Located in St. Petersburg, the new plant will start production in 2009. This decision is subject to the approval of a specific government agreement.
Nissan made these estimates for its financial outlook for the financial year ending March 21, 2007.
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