YOKOHAMA (Reuters) - Japan's Nissan Motor Co. (>> Nissan Motor Co Ltd) posted a 9 percent fall in quarterly operating profit, its first year-on-year decrease in five quarters, hurt by a stronger yen and sliding domestic sales as it halted marketing models of scandal-hit Mitsubishi Motors.

Operating profit at Japan's second-largest automaker by sales came in at 175.8 billion yen (£1.2 billion), exceeding an average estimate of around 168 billion yen from nine analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S/.

Nissan maintained its May forecast for operating profit to fall 11 percent to 710 billion yen in the year to March.

The U.S. dollar has tumbled around 12 percent against the yen since the start of 2016, and broad strength in the domestic currency seen in the past year has weighed on profits at Japanese automakers, who sell the majority of their vehicles overseas. A stronger yen makes their Japan-produced vehicles less competitive overseas and lowers the value of repatriated earnings.

Nissan said its operating profit took a 91.2 billion yen hit in the quarter due to the impact of currency moves, roughly one-third of which was due to the yen's climb against the dollar. It expects to take a 255 billion yen hit for the full year due to currency volatility.

The company expects the yen to average around 105 to the U.S. dollar and 120 to the euro this year, compared with roughly 120 yen and 133 yen, respectively, during the year ended March. Each 1 yen rise versus the dollar slashes operating profit by around 14 billion yen.

"We aren't planning to change our strategy due to currency volatility," Corporate Vice President Joji Tagawa told an earnings briefing.

Nissan's overall vehicle sales volumes in the quarter fell 0.6 percent from a year ago as Japanese sales slumped 25 percent after the company stopped marketing two minivehicle models produced by Mitsubishi Motors (>> MITSUBISHI MOTORS CORPORATION) which were found to have overstated their mileage.

Vehicle sales in North America and China, Nissan's biggest markets, rose on the year, while sales slipped in Europe and other regions, including Southeast Asia and South America.

Analysts expect sales to pick up in the coming months due to new model launches, including the Serena minivan in Japan, along with the new Kicks SUV crossover initially in Latin America and the Datsun redi-GO compact crossover in India. The drag from currency fluctuations, though, is seen intensifying.

Sales growth in European markets may be subdued in the mid-term due to uncertainties surrounding the British vote to leave the European Union.

Nissan may be particularly vulnerable to the UK's departure from the free-trade region as the automaker operates a plant in northern England with an annual output of around 500,000 units, the largest among automakers producing in the country.

In May, Nissan announced it would take a controlling stake in Mitsubishi.

Separately, Mitsubishi Motors reported on Wednesday a 75 percent plunge in first-quarter operating profit as domestic sales slumped after it admitted to overstating the fuel economy of some of its vehicles.

(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu; Additional reporting by Tim Kelly in TOKYO; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

By Naomi Tajitsu

Stocks treated in this article : Renault, MITSUBISHI MOTORS CORPORATION, Nissan Motor Co Ltd