Nokian Tyres Record Figures

The Finnish tyre manufacturer Nokian Tyres still continues expanding. And, besides that, its results improve from year to year. In 1998, the company showed a turnover of Euro 251.

3 million, in 1999 it jumped to Euro 322,6 million, mainly thanks to the acquisition of the Finnish chain ISKO. But even without this acquisition the company’s turnover would have been higher than Euro 300 million.The Operating Profit came to Euro 42.

1 million, which is a good 13 per cent of the turnover. The net profit amounts to Euro 25.7 million, which is 7.

9 per cent of the turnover. At present, no other competitor of the tyre industry worldwide achieves such results. Last year Nokian invested Euro 85.

7 million, of which more than Euro 30 million were used for the plant and over Euro 50 million were needed for the expansion of their trade activities. In the past, Nokian Tyres again and again surprised us with new products which met with an excellent response on the market .The manufacturer works with a lot of external sources, and last year it invested Euro 7.

8 million in research and development. At the end of the year the group had 2,226 employees of which 1,347 work for the parent company.Passenger car tyres:The passenger car tyre business has been extremely successful, sales increased by 20 per cent to Euro 164.

0 million. Demand for winter tyres turned out to be stable. The manufacturer was also able to significantly increase its profits in the V and W sectors.

The management also pointed out that the measures taken to strengthen the brand, its image and its awareness have been very successful. After having produced 3.8 million passenger car tyres in 1998, about 4.

1 million passenger car tyres could be manufactured in 1999. Nokian has also been purchasing from several other sources. The agreement with Tofan, which concerned commercial vehicle tyres more than passenger car tyres, has been terminated, because, according to the Finns, the Romanians couldn’t guarantee sufficient product quality.

Commercial vehicle tyres:In this segment, sales increased by 3 per cent to Euro 54.9 million, compared to 1998.The change-over to special radial agricultural and forestry tyres is progressing.

The truck tyre figures, however, edged downwards, in particular due to the weak Russian market. Trade activities:For the last couple of years, Nokian Tyres has been trying to protect its domestic market, the so-called “Nordic Countries” and continues expanding its retail chain. Last year, a big and important achievement was the acquisition of the – at that time – independent chain ISKO with 40 locations in Finland.

For the first time, sales in the trade sector exceeded Euro 100 million; in 1998, sales had only been Euro 48.3 million.Prospects for the future:Although according to the Finns the year 2000 is supposed to be a more difficult one, they still think their figures will be increasing.

Nokian Tyres sees extremely good chances for an increase in the V and W speed class sectors of their high-performance tyres. Due to investments during the last years the production capacity will be increased by approximately 10 per cent..