Sales of €40.5 billion, record tyre volumes – Continental announces 2016 results

Continental AG reports achieving annual sales of €40.55 billion in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 3.6 per cent. Adjusted EBIT amounted to €4.34 billion, 0.6 per cent lower than a year earlier, while the adjusted EBIT margin was also slightly down, at 10.8 per cent. Profit after tax rose 2.6 per cent to €2.80 billion; earnings per share were €14.01.

“We once again slightly exceeded the previous year’s impressive figures,” commented Dr Elmar Degenhart, chairman of Continental’s Executive Board. “We again grew faster than the underlying markets for our business.” Degenhart referred to this growth as an encouraging development, in view of the negative effects published in the third quarter: “Without these isolated events, we would have achieved a record year. Our overall success is therefore more than impressive and is intended to pay off for our shareholders, too. We are therefore proposing an increase in the dividend for the fifth time in a row, to €4.25.”

The company’s Tire division sold 150 million passenger car and truck tyres last year, a record volume, and in doing so increased its global market share. Tire division sales recorded organic growth of 4.7 per cent to €10.7 billion, and the adjusted EBIT margin rose to 21.7 per cent. “Thanks to this record result, the Tire division contributes more than half of adjusted consolidated EBIT. This is an outstanding achievement,” noted chief financial officer Wolfgang Schäfer.

Declaring Continental “fit for the future,” Elmar Degenhart confirmed the company’s expectation of increasing its sales to more than €43 billion in the current financial year. “We want to achieve an adjusted EBIT margin of more than 10.5 per cent, in spite of a significant increase in raw material prices,” he added.

Further details can be found in the Tyrepress.com company profiles and reports section.