70% of Japan blue chips rake in higher profits on price hikes, soft yen

TOKYO -- Profits are up at more than two-thirds of big Japanese public companies that have released results for the fiscal year ended in March, thanks to a confluence of factors such as a soft yen, successful price hikes and a tourism rebound.

Nikkei looked at earnings announcements through Wednesday from 173 companies on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Prime market. The share of businesses reporting higher profits jumped 14 percentage points to 69%.