Japan's Honda reports a nearly 9% rise in profit on healthy demand

TOKYO, Japan: Honda announced a notable 8.7 percent rise in its profit for the April-June quarter, driven by robust sales of hybrid vehicles in Japan and the U.S., as well as motorcycles in India and Brazil.

The Japanese automaker reported a quarterly profit of 394.7 billion yen (US$2.7 billion), up from 363 billion yen a year earlier. Sales for the quarter surged nearly 17 percent to 5.4 trillion yen ($36.7 bil