Mazda suffers $1.3b full-year loss

ninemsn - Japan's Mazda Motor says it lost $1.3 billion over the last year as it took a double hit from the strong yen and falling demand in key developed markets.

Mazda, Japan's fifth-largest car maker by volume, reported a group net loss of Y211.5 billion ($A2.52 billion) in the fiscal year to March, much larger than the 60.0 billion yen loss reported a year earlier.

At the operating level the company, based in Hiroshima in western Japan, fell to a 38.7 billion yen loss, from a profit of 23.8 billion yen the year earlier.

Sales fell 12.6 per cent to 2.03 trillion yen.

The carmaker said the loss was mainly due to the strong yen, a slump in sales overseas, notably in Europe, as well as the impact of last year's earthquake and tsunami and massive floods in Thailand.

For the current fiscal year to March 2013, Mazda forecast a return to the black, projecting net profit at 10 billion yen and operating profit at 30 billion yen on sales of 2.2 trillion yen.