Japan’s four major tire manufacturers have now posted their earnings forecasts for calendar 2019, with the general trend of expectations here pointing to increased sales and decreased profits. And amid this, all four of the companies are planning increases to their production capacity. While a number of factors make 2019 a difficult year to predict – including the U.S.–China trade...
Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108) recently announced that it is supplying six different tires ranging 19–21 inches for the E-Tron SUV, a new electric vehicle (EV) that launched this January under the Audi Group. Hitting the market as Audi’s first EV, the E-Tron utilizes two electric motors to make for major improvements to both acceleration and noise levels. Bridgestone’s tires then help...
Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108) plans to acquire TomTom Telematics BV, a subsidiary of TomTom NV of the Netherlands. The acquisition is expected to take place during the second quarter of the business year ending December 2019 for a purchase price of 910 million euros ($1.04 billion). TomTom Telematics operates a digital fleet solutions business that provides cloud-based services such as vehicle...
Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108) is set to launch the Duravis G640, a tire specialized for community buses, on March 1. The tire will be available in a single size. This comes as the number of community buses in operation rises across Japan. Providing user convenience and responding to diversifying needs in ways that existing bus services are unable to cover, examples...
Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108) subsidiary Bridgestone Tire Japan Co. Ltd. recently unveiled the Regno GR-XII, a new product under the company’s premium Regno brand of passenger car tires. Speaking at the event, Director Junji Nagashima said that Bridgestone emphasizes having its tires combine strong results across seven metrics of driving performance. These are a sense of stability; dry performance; wet performance;...
Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108) is looking to boost sales of its Blizzak VRX and Blizzak VRX2 lines of passenger car studless tires. While the company managed strong sales for its VRX2 line last year, a representative said that this was largely due to the appeal of it being a new product at the time, adding that the plan this season is...
