Net Income Up for Sumitomo Rubber

Japan’s Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd has announced its consolidated financial results for the 2006 year. For the twelve months ending December 31, 2006 the company’s net sales came to 534,086 million yen (£2.34 billion), up 4.1 per cent on 2005’s results. The company’s operating income was 36,789 million yen (£161.2 million), substantially lower than in 2005, but net income, taking income taxes and extraordinary profit and loss into account, increased by 7.6 per cent during 2006, up to 27,585 million yen (£120.1 million).

The company’s tyre division, SRI Tire Trading Ltd., producer of Dunlop, Falken and Sumitomo brand tyres, registered total sales of 430,886 million yen (£1.89 billion) in 2006, 8.2 per cent higher than the year before. However operating income for tyres was 26,381 million yen (£115.6 million), a drop of 33.6 per cent.

The Japanese market is by far Sumitomo Rubber’s most important, capturing 62.8 per cent of all net sales. Outside of Japan, North America was the region in which the company displayed the best performance, capturing 12.1 per cent or 64,430 million yen (£282.3 million) of net sales. Asia and Europe were minor contributors towards Sumitomo Rubber’s bottom line, respectively contributing only 6.8 and 5.9 per cent of the company’s net sales.