Honda Motor Co <7267.T> reported a 52 percent fall in quarterly operating profit and refrained from providing an outlook for the new business year as it struggles to measure the speed of its recovery after last month's earthquake in Japan.

Japanese automakers have yet to figure out how fast all of the parts makers affected by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake on March 11 will fully recover, making it difficult to give an earnings projection for the year to March 2012.

For the January-March quarter, Honda's operating profit was 46.21 billion yen ($562 million), compared with an average estimate of 103.1 billion yen from 15 analysts. Fourth-quarter net profit, which includes profits made in China, fell 38 percent to 44.55 billion yen.

A survey of 15 analysts put Honda's operating profit for the full year to March 2012 at 394 billion yen, down from 569.8 billion yen in the business year that just ended.

As of Wednesday, Honda's shares were down 8.8 percent from pre-quake levels, compared with a 9.0 percent fall in Tokyo's transport sectors subindex <.ITEQP.T>.

($1 = 82.220 Japanese Yen)

(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Matt Driskill and Edmund Klamann)

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