NISSAN became the latest major Japanese auto maker to report booming earnings - and forecast a plunge in profit, blaming an unfavorable rising yen and soaring material costs.

"There is no way we can overcome these headwinds," Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said yesterday.

The Nissan Motor Co expects profit for the year ending next March to plunge 30 percent to 340 billion yen (US$3.3 billion). Last fiscal year, its net profit rose 5 percent to 482.3 billion yen.

It's the same story for rivals Toyota and Honda, which both announced strong annual earnings and dismal forecasts amid worries about the slumping US economy and the strong yen.

Toyota is projecting a 27-percent tumble in fiscal year profit, while Honda foresees an 18 percent drop. For the January-March quarter, Nissan's net profit rose 67 percent to 137.6 billion yen.

Ghosn was upbeat in his news conference, promising that Nissan will take the lead in electric vehicles.

Nissan will introduced an electric vehicle in the US and Japan in 2010, and mass-market such vehicles globally in 2012, he said.

Car sales were just fine, he said, and the profit dip merely reflected currency fluctuations that eroded overseas earnings.

Nissan sold 3.77 million vehicles worldwide for the year ended March 31, up 8.2 percent from the previous year.

Although sales were down 2.5 percent in Japan at 721,000 vehicles, they climbed 17.9 percent in Europe to 636,000, and gained a whopping 22 percent in other overseas markets, including China, at 1.06 million.