Yokohama Rubber Lowers Sales and Earnings Projections

Yokohama Rubber has downwardly revised its sales and earnings projections for the fiscal year to March 31, 2009. Company management now projects consolidated net sales of 523.0 billion yen (£4.2 billion), down 5.2 per cent from the previous fiscal year; consolidated operating income of 14.0 billion yen (£113 million), down 57.7 per cent; and a consolidated net loss of 7.0 billion yen (£56.5 million), down from a consolidated net profit of 21.1 billion yen in the previous fiscal year. The revised projection for net sales is 6.1 per cent lower than the projection Yokohama announced on November 12, 2008; the projection for operating income 46.2 per cent lower; and the projection for net income 16.5 billion yen (£133.2 million) lower. Management is reconsidering the year-end dividend of 7 yen that it had planned to recommend.

These downward revisions in projected sales and earnings, says Yokohama, have been necessitated by slumping demand associated with the global economic downturn, along with the stronger-than-expected yen. Management had assumed average exchange rates of 103 yen per US dollar and 146 yen per euro in preparing the earlier projections. The assumptions for the average exchange rates underlying the revised projections are 100 yen to the US dollar and 143 yen to the euro.