Multinational tire company's first-quarter results show red

Recently, some multinational tire companies announced their first-quarter sales, showing an overall upward trend.

Hankook Tire's 2012 first quarter results report showed that its global sales reached a record high, reaching 1.71 trillion won (about 1.512 billion US dollars), an increase of 17.1%.

At the same time, Pirelli's tires were also outstanding in the first quarter. The Group’s recently released first-quarter results report shows that as of March 31, Pirelli Group’s revenue was 1.565 billion euros, an increase of 11.1% year-on-year, compared with 1.409 billion euros in the same period of last year; comprehensive net profit was 125.3 billion euros, an increase of 54 %. For this year's revenue target, Pirelli Group revised to approximately 6.45 billion euros, an increase of 14% over the previous year.

In addition, Goodyear also achieved year-on-year growth in the first quarter of this year. The company announced that its sales for the first quarter of 2012 was US$5.5 billion, an increase of 2% over the same period of the previous year, and set a new record for sales in the first quarter. Among them, sales of tires business in the Asia-Pacific region were US$577 million, a year-on-year increase of 5%, setting a record high for the first quarter.

The results of the first quarter of this year released by various tire companies show that Hankook and Pirelli tires have achieved double-digit growth. However, due to the impact of the macroeconomic crisis, the demand for tires in the European and North American markets slowed down. Some tire manufacturers reported lower-than-expected sales in the first quarter of this year, and sales of tires are expected to decline slightly over the previous year.