Conti turns 140

Tomorrow one of the world’s largest tyre and automotive component manufacturer will celebrate 140 years in the business. On October 8, 1871 nine bankers and industrialists from the German city of Hannover founded Continental-Caoutchouc & Gutta-Percha Compagnie as a joint stock company. The firm began life with joint stock valued at some 300,000 thalers, an amount equating to a present-day purchasing power of approximately 6.3 million euros, and at its first plant in Hannover a workforce of around 200 produced a range of rubber products including hot water bottles, toy dolls and solid tyres for carriages and bicycles.

By the 1880s sales amounted to the equivalent of approximately 21.5 million euros. Continental produced its, and Germany’s first pneumatic bicycle tyre in 1892 and twelve years later was the first company in the world to develop car tyres with tread patterns. Other Conti firsts include removable rims for touring cars, which it introduced in 1908. Continental was also the first German firm to produce tubeless tyres, in 1943.

In the late 1920s, a number of major companies in the German rubber industry merged to form Continental Gummi-Werke AG, and Conti began its expansion beyond German borders in the early 1980s, when it acquired the European tyre operations of US company Uniroyal Inc., took over the North American tyre manufacturer General Tire and purchased majority holdings in the Portuguese company Mabor and the Czech tyre maker Barum.

At the end of the 1990s, the Continental Corporation revamped its strategy. The first step in this direction was taken in 1998 with the purchase of the ITT Industries automotive brake & chassis operations (Teves). In 2001, Continental acquired the international electronics specialist Temic from Daimler. In doing so the tyre specialist gave itself a second mainstay in the automotive supplies business. The acquisition of Motorola’s automotive electronics business in 2006 expanded Continental’s activities in telematics, and elsewhere. And more was to come.

“With the biggest acquisition to date in the company’s history – the takeover of Siemens VDO Automotive AG – Continental advanced to the premier league of automotive suppliers worldwide,” elaborates Continental Executive Board chairman Dr. Elmar Degenhart. “It also enabled us to simultaneously strengthen our market position in Europe, North America and Asia.”

 Today the company, which was acquired by German firm Schaeffler in 2008, boasts global sales of 26 billion euros and employs around 155,000 people at 193 locations in 45 countries. To mark the company’s 140th birthday, various individual celebrations have been held throughout the year at many Conti locations.