Nippon Steel Corp. said Wednesday its group net balance swung into the black in fiscal 2003 on brisk sales to automobile, ship and industrial machinery makers, as well as on strong exports.

In a group earnings report for the year to March 31, Japan's largest steelmaker said its net profit came to 41.52 billion yen, a positive turnaround from the previous year's loss of 51.69 billion yen.

Nippon Steel said its pretax profit rose 150.9 percent to 172.85 billion yen on a 6.4 percent increase in sales to 2.925 trillion yen.