Japan’s Nissan Motor, opens a new tab and expects operating profit to rise 5.5% this year on growing global sales, it said on Thursday, while warning that intense competition and difficulties from inflationary pressure would remain this financial year.

The Yokohama-based automaker sees operating profit coming in at 600 billion yen ($3.85 billion) in the year that started on April 1, compared with the 577.3 billion yen average estimate from 18 analysts surveyed by LSEG.

Operating profit for the three months ended March 31 came to 90.3 billion yen, far short of the average estimate of 118.2 billion yen from eight analysts surveyed by LSEG.

In April, Nissan slashed its annual operating profit estimate for the year that just ended by 14.5% on lower-than-expected vehicle sales.