Honda Motor Co. had the second-highest market capitalization of publicly traded companies in Japan on Tuesday, passing such firms as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc and NTT DoCoMo Inc. on its way up from fifth place a year earlier.
While Toyota Motor Corp. remains well ahead of the pack, automakers now occupy the top two spots.
Honda shares gained 2% to close at 3,545 yen on Tuesday, a day after the firm upgraded its earnings forecast for the fiscal year through March 31. Its market cap swelled to 6.42 trillion yen, beating the previous day's No. 2 firm, DoCoMo, by about 28 billion yen.
The stock market has welcomed Honda's ability to weather a strong yen, underscored by its October-December results. In addition to cutting costs, the automaker has expanded operations in emerging markets, mainly through local production.
"I give high marks to Honda for essentially logging 140 billion yen in operating profit when the dollar was at about 83 yen," Goldman Sachs Japan Co. analyst Kota Yuzawa said.
The top 10 firms included others faring well in emerging markets, among them Mitsubishi Corp. at No. 8 and Nissan Motor Co. at No. 9. Automakers also got a boost from a North American recovery.
After hovering around No. 15 at the turn of the century, Honda regularly showed up in fifth or sixth place by 2009. Tuesday marked its first time at No. 2 dating back to the late-1980s economic bubble.
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