Bridgestone expects to break-even in 2009 on a 19% sales cut

ERJ staff report (DS)

Tokyo, Japan -- Bridgestone Corp has finally released its financial predictiond for 2009, and it expects only to break even for the 12 months to December 2009. Its forecasts for the six months to June 2009, however, are slightly less bad than those issued in May.

For the six months due to end next week, the company now expects consolidated operating loss to be yen 28 000 million (euro 209 million), instead of the loss of yen 40 000 million (40 billion) forecast on 8 May this year. Consolidated net loss will be around yen 46 billion, instead of yen 62 billion forecast in May. In the six months to June 2008, the company recorded an operating profit of yen 83.7 billion and a net profit of yen 37.2 billion.

At the time of the last forecast (8 May) Bridgestone said the outlook was too uncertain to issue a forecast for the full year. Now it says the outlook is still uncertain, but expects to record an operating income of yen 56 billion for the full year and a net income of zero. In 2008 the company recorded operating profit of yen 131 billion and a net profit of yen 10.4 billion. The new forecast shows sales down by 19 percent to yen 2620 billion from yen 3234 billion in 2008.

Bridgestone said it expects revenues from its tyre business and its diversified products activities to be less in 2009 than they were in 2008. This, combined with a stronger currency will lead to a 19 percent fall in revenues.

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Press release from Bridgestone (full year forecast)

Press release from Bridgestone (six-month forecast)