‘Highest ever’ – Yokohama H1 2021 financial results

The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd. could phone up the team at Guinness World Records, were it so inclined. Each and every one of the company’s earnings figures for the six months to 30 June 2021 were the highest ever for the first half of a fiscal year.

Highlights include a 29-fold year-on-year increase in profit attributable to owners of parent, to 36.9 billion yen (£241.4 million). While the previous year’s result includes the disastrous first months of the pandemic, this H1 2021 result is also 121 per cent higher than the profit figure for the first half of 2019.

Operating profit increased 16-fold year-on-year and 93.6 per cent over H1 2019, to 48.6 billion yen (£318.0 million). Business profit, the Japanese equivalent to operating income, was 13-fold higher year-on-year and up 52.9 per cent compared with the same period two years ago, to 26.3 billion yen (£172.1 million). Sales revenue of 303.9 billion yen (£2.0 billion) was 27.7 per cent higher than the corresponding period last year but 2.3 per cent lower than the result achieved two years earlier.

Tires business segment

While H1 2021 sales revenue within the company’s Tires business segment was, at 211.0 billion yen (£1.4 billion), approximately at the same level as during the first half of 2019, business profit of 16.3 billion yen (£106.5 million) was 116.7 per cent higher than in H1 2019; the segment recorded a business loss of 2.0 billion yen (£13.2 million) in H1 2020.

Yokohama Rubber shares that sales revenue in original equipment tyres increased strongly year-on-year, supported by recovering demand in Japan and in China. This increase occurred despite the global shortage of semiconductor devices that’s affecting vehicle production worldwide. Sales revenue for replacement market tyres “rose strongly” both in Japan and globally; Yokohama Rubber states that this growth reflects its “vigorous promotion” of high-value-added products and expanded production to meet “robust demand.” Sales in Japan were helped by snowfalls early in the year, which drove strong demand for winter tyres.

ATG segment

Sales revenue and business profit in Yokohama’s ATG segment, now part of the Yokohama Off-Highway Tires subsidiary, also increased to their highest-ever levels. Sales of 48.2 billion yen (£315.6 million) in H1 2021 were 29.5 per cent higher than two years earlier and up 60.5 per cent year-on-year. Business profit amounted to 7.1 billion yen (£46.6 million), which represents a 37.8 per cent increase on the 2019 result and 119.7 per cent improvement on last year.

Revised full-year projections

Yokohama has revised upward the full-year fiscal projections for 2021 that it announced in May. It now projects sales revenue of 655.0 billion yen (£4.3 billion), business profit of 51.5 billion yen (£336.9 million), operating profit of 73.5 billion yen (£480.9 million), and profit attributable to owners of parent of 57.5 billion yen (£376.2 million).