Yokohama Rubber posts tire-sales recovery in Russia

Tokyo – Yokohama Rubber Co. (YRC) has seen a recovery in its tire sales in Russia, figures in the Japanese group’s first-half results indicate.

After recording a year-on-year slump of around 70% in the second quarter of 2022, YRC’s tire sales rallied somewhat to end the year about 40% below the prior-year level.

The recovery trend firmed up in 2023, with second-quarter and first-half sales coming in 273% and 126% respectively higher than in the same periods of last year.

As previously reported by ERJ, YRC has decided not to issue a forecast figure for tire sales in Russia over full-year 2023 due to on-going market uncertainty there.

However, the current sales trend looks set to, at least, restore the proportion of YRC's tire sales in Russia to 3% of the group's overall tire sales in full-year 2023.  

This would compare to tire-sales contributions of 2% and 4% from Russia recorded by the group for 2022 and 2021 respectively.

YRC along with Pirelli are the only two major tire makers to have maintained production in Russia in the wake of the crises caused by the war on Ukraine.

The Japanese group operates a production facility in Lipetsk with a listed capacity to produce 1.6 million passenger car tires a year.

Last September, YRC resumed manufacture at the Russian facility, having halted production there in March due to "problems in procuring raw materials.”