Losses double at Goodyear
Losses have doubled at tyre giant Goodyear to £243 million for the last year as it axed around 5,700 jobs worldwide in a bid to cut costs as sales drop.
Losses have doubled at tyre giant Goodyear to £243 million for the last year as it axed around 5,700 jobs worldwide in a bid to cut costs as sales drop.
The company still employs around 1,200 people at its operations in Bushbury, Wolverhampton, and at Fort Dunlop, Birmingham, although numbers have been cut back severely in the last decade.
Unveiling its full year figures, US-based Goodyear said sales had fallen to £10.6 billion from £12.6 billion the year before. Demand from vehicle manufacturers on the Continent and in North America fell sharply as they cut back on their own production in the grip of the worst recession to hit the auto industry since the war.
The result was a net loss of £243 million compared to a loss of just £50 million a year ago. This was despite improving performance in the last three months of 2009, when tyre sales were up seven per cent on the same period a year before.
It has also launched 62 new products in the last year as it tries to boost sales.
Chairman and chief executive officer Robert Keegan said: "Our fourth quarter results were solid.
"Tyre demand around the world has begun to recover and we look forward to year-over-year global growth in 2010. We remain confident, but many challenges, including high raw material costs and weak commercial truck tyre demand, will persist in 2010."
The tyre group has slashed more than £1.6 billion from its costs since 2006, which saw it cut 5,700 jobs last year. It currently employs around 69,000 people worldwide.
Although overall demand for tyres has improved in recent months, the commercial tyre market is still weak both in Europe and in North America.
Its Europe, Middle East and Africa Tyre business, which includes Goodyear Dunlop's UK operations, sold 66 million tyres last year, down from 73.6 million the year before and its operating income more than halved to £108 million from £276 million. But a late boom in demand for winter tyres helped boost figures at the end of the year, increasing tyre sales by more than a million units to 16.2 million tyres in the last three months.
