Yokohama Rubber reports sales increased 28 percent for 2022
Hiratsuka, Japan—The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., announced its business and financial results for fiscal 2022 (January to December 2022). Sales revenue increased 28.3% over the previous year, to 860.5 billion yen, and business profit increased 12.8%, to 70.1 billion yen. Both of those figures were record-high figures for full-year performance at Yokohama Rubber. Profit on the sale of Yokohama Rubber’s headquarters building in the previous year and other factors resulted in declines in operating profit, which declined 17.7%, to 68.9 billion yen, and in profit attributable to owners of parent, which declined 29.9%, to 45.9 billion yen.
The record-high figures for sales revenue and business profit reflected a successful summer campaign for promoting sales of ADVAN-brand high-value-added products and vigorous business in of agricultural tires and other off-highway tires. They also reflected improvements in Yokohama Rubber’s product mix and price increases in Japan and overseas markets. The positive factors resulted in notably strong sales gains in North America. Sales and earnings also benefited from the weakening of the yen during the year against other principal currencies.
Yokohama Rubber’s strong business performance overcame several adverse factors, starting with the fallout from the conflict in Ukraine. The adversity also included upturns in raw material prices and logistics costs, reduced production by automakers on account of the shortages of semiconductor components, China’s zero-Covid policy, and the inflation-caused surge in energy prices.
Both sales revenue and business profit increased over the previous year in Yokohama Rubber’s Tires segment. The company’s sales of original equipment tires increased as automakers began moving to restore production volume, as Yokohama Rubber won new fitments in North America, and as the yen weakened against other principal currencies. Those factors more than offset the continuing constraints imposed on vehicle production by the shortages of semiconductor components and the adverse effects of the Covid-related lockdowns in China.
Yokohama Rubber also posted sales growth in replacement tires. Heavy snowfalls in Japan in early 2022 stimulated sales of Yokohama Rubber’s winter tires, and successful promotion of high-value-added products in overseas markets fueled sales momentum in North America and in China and other Asian nations. Sales revenue in replacement tires also benefited from price increases in several markets, though the contribution from price increases was less than planned in Japan.
The company posted record-high sales revenue and business profit in its Yokohama Off-Highway Tires unit (formerly the ATG [Alliance Tire Group] segment). That strong performance reflected success in asserting the cost competitiveness of the unit’s Indian-produced tires through North American and other sales channels and success in securing price increases for the unit’s products.