Nissan delivered 58 billion yen in operating profit for fiscal year 2025 ending March 31, 2026, the first positive operating result in a turnaround plan the company has spent the past year building. Net income stayed negative at 533.1 billion yen.
The margin was 0.5 percent on consolidated revenue of 12.0 trillion yen from 3.15 million units sold globally. Automotive free cash flow for the full fiscal year was negative 480.8 billion yen, but the second half turned positive at 112 billion yen, the metric CEO Ivan Espinosa pointed to as evidence the recovery is gaining traction.
The U.S. market delivered 926,153 units for calendar year 2025, up 0.2 percent. Kicks sales rose 33.9 percent, Pathfinder climbed 25.6 percent, and Murano jumped 121.3 percent for the full year. The volume growth came from models Nissan can still sell profitably in a segment where incentive discipline collapsed margins across the industry during the prior two years.
The cost side is where Nissan made the most visible progress. The company reported 200 billion yen in fixed cost savings and 55 billion yen in variable cost reductions, part of a 500-billion-yen cost reduction target under the Re:Nissan plan. Manufacturing consolidation from 17 sites to 10 is underway, with execution across seven sites in progress. Engineering cost per hour dropped 18 percent, nearing the 20 percent target.
For fiscal 2026, Nissan is forecasting net revenue of 13 trillion yen, operating profit of 200 billion yen, and net income of 20 billion yen. The company stated it remains committed to achieving positive automotive operating profit and free cash flow by the end of fiscal 2026, excluding the impact of tariffs. No dividend is planned.
Espinosa framed fiscal 2025 as foundation work and fiscal 2026 as the year Nissan moves from recovery to growth. The challenge is that the foundation still rests on a 0.5 percent operating margin and a balance sheet that burned through nearly half a trillion yen in automotive free cash flow before the second-half reversal. The positive 112 billion yen in the back half is the data point the company is using to argue the trajectory has changed. Whether that trajectory holds through another year of tariff uncertainty and intensifying competition is the test fiscal 2026 will deliver.
Source: Nissan. Images courtesy of Nissan.
