Yokohama on track for record earnings
Yokohama Rubber reports a strong increase in both sales and earnings during the first half of 2012. As a result, it says the company is on track to post record sales and earnings for the full fiscal year. Yokohama Rubber has also upwardly revised the fiscal projections it released in February. In releasing its half-year figures, Yokohama also notes that the company shifted from an April to March financial year to a January to December reporting period this year, and therefore formal comparisons of first-half results are impossible. The percent-change figures the company gives are in reference to arbitrary, six-month sums for the same period last year.
In the first half, net company income increased 280.6 per cent over the same period of the previous year, to 13.7 billion yen (£111.5 million), on a 232.2 per cent increase in operating income, to 19.9 billion yen (£161.9 million), and a 7.0 per cent increase in net sales, to 269.0 billion yen (£2.2 billion). Yokohama says this surge in profitability reflects unit sales gains in both its tyre and diversified products businesses, greater market acceptance of price increases, an easing of the upward trend in raw material costs, and continued progress with cost reduction measures. Those positive factors, the Japanese manufacturer notes, more than offset the adverse effect of the yen’s continuing appreciation.
In Yokohama’s tyre operations, operating income increased 305.5 per cent year-on-year to 16.9 billion yen (£137.5 million), on a 6.8 per cent increase in sales, to 211.1 billion yen (£1.7 billion). Sales in the Japanese original equipment market increased solidly in step with increased vehicle production, a reflection of a return to normal production following the March 2011 earthquake. Demand in Japan’s replacement market was described as “robust”, even though sales declined slightly year-on-year due to last year’s surge in demand following the earthquake. Sales in international markets declined as a result of lower demand in Europe (excluding Russia), North America and China.
Full year net incomes projections have risen from the figure of 25 billion yen published in February to 30 billion yen (£244.1 million) and operating income projections have been bumped up from 40 billion to 49 billion yen (£398.7 million). Net sales figures have been slightly revised, up from 575 billion to 576 billion yen (£4.7 billion).Yokohama has announced that the annual dividend will total 18 yen per share: an interim dividend of 8 yen and a year-end dividend of 10 yen.
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