Hankook Tire report positive numbers for first quarter

Seoul, Korea – Hankook Tire & Technology (Hankook Tire) announced sales of KRW 2,127.2 billion and an operating profit of KRW 398.7 billion based on the global consolidated financial results for the first quarter of 2024. Sales increased 1.1% year over year (YoY), and operating profit increased 108.8%.

Despite the global economic downturn and the tensions in the Middle East, Hankook Tire has continued to grow under the leadership of Hankook & Company Group Chairman Hyunbum Cho, who strategically chose to invest in research and development (R&D) in anticipation of the future mobility market. Furthermore, Hankook Tire has yielded success by leading the EV tire market and expanding sales of high-value products based on its supercar and global premium brand strategy.

Due to the company’s early emphasis on developing tire technology for high-performance premium electric vehicles (EVs), Hankook Tire is now at the forefront of the worldwide EV tire market, dominating the industry even before EVs became widely available. Hankook Tire continued diversifying its portfolio for the tire brand iON since its release and is currently selling 202 tire specifications ranging from 16 to 22 inches. In March 2023, iON outperformed rivals from top-tier brands in a test conducted by TÜV SÜD, a global testing and certification agency.

This year, the company aims to boost the proportion of EV tires in its passenger car and light truck (PCLT) Original Equipment Tire (OET) supply to 25%. Hankook Tire is now providing OET for electric vehicle models for the Porsche Taycan, Audi e-tron GT, BMW i4, Volkswagen ID.4, Hyundai Ioniq 6, and Tesla Model Y, and Model 3.

In PCLT tire sales, the proportion of sales of high-inch passenger tires (18 inches and above) was 46.8%, up 3.3 percentage points YoY. By region, the share of high-inch passenger tires was highest in China (62.5%), followed by Korea (56.5%), North America (56.4%), and Europe (37.4%).

As a world-leading tire company, Hankook Tire has consolidated its global technological competitiveness by fulfilling the tire performance requirements of high-performance vehicles and global premium brands, currently supplying new tires for more than 250 models from nearly 40 automakers, including Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, and Tesla.

Hankook Tire is also positioning itself as the world’s leading EV tire technology and premium brand. Since the 2022-2023 season, Hankook Tire has been the exclusive supplier and official partner of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, the world’s premier EV racing competition organized by the International Automobile Federation (FIA). Also, Hankook Tire is focusing on developing tire technology and improving the performance of EV tires by leveraging the data acquired from the competition to improve its product line.

Prices of raw materials such as synthetic rubber and carbon black were maintained at a decent level, as did ocean freight costs, contributing to this quarter’s solid performance.