According to preliminary figures, Delticom revenues increased by approximately 52 per cent to 38.9 million euros compared with 25.6 million euros for the same period in the previous year. EBIT improved to £300,000 at 31 March 2007 following negative EBIT (30,000 euros) in the first quarter of 2006.

The first three months of the year are seen as the weakest in terms of sales and earnings and this was no different for Delticom. Most winter tyres had already been bought before the turn of the year and sales of summer tyres only begin in earnest in the second quarter, a company statement read.

“With the preliminary quarterly figures, we started the current year somewhat better than we had thought”, explained Rainer Binder of the Delticom AG Managing Board, adding: “Having increased our revenues by 34 per cent in fiscal year 2006 and generated a strong EBIT margin of 5.9 per cent, the online tyre market also offers good growth opportunities for us this year. We intend to make use of these in the course of the year and to continue our strong growth in 2007.”