Cooper targets “big year” in Europe

Findlay, Ohio – Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. aims to improve its business performance helped by new products in Europe, according to chief operating officer and senior vice president Bradley Hughes.

In his remarks at Cooper’s annual results’ conference call, Hughes said: “it’s a big year for new product introductions in Europe. Many of those are going go to be manufactured in our Serbian facility, which we believe is going to position them very well within the marketplace over there.”

“While it’s overall a relatively weak environment, we’re expecting that our performance should be relatively strong in Europe so we look for some improvement in that market,” he added.

Cooper executives also noted that demand for winter tires was negatively impacted by mild weather in Europe, and anticipated weakness to continue in Russia and Eastern Europe due to the political environment.

While stating that throughout Europe the economies were soft, the officials expressed the hope that the business would see improvement.