Bridgestone Corp. recorded a 11% year-over-year drop in global revenue and a 39% year-over-year decline in operating profit during the first quarter of 2020.
In its Americas region, Bridgestone experienced a 9% drop in revenue and a 22% decline in operating profit 1Q 2019 versus 1Q 2020.
Looking at the rest of the year, Bridgestone officials say that OE and replacement tire demand will be “substantially lower” than the company’s last round of projections due to stagnation in global economic activity “stemming from state of emergency declarations in countries worldwide" caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Resulting uncertainty makes it difficult to produce “rational performance forecast figures,” but Bridgestone says that revised forecasts for the rest of 2020 will be “disclosed promptly when calculation becomes possible.”
Yesterday, Bridgestone Americas Inc. announced that the rest of its shuttered plants in North and Latin America – including consumer tire manufacturing facilities – will resume production at the end of May. The company's commercial truck tire manufacturing plants in the United States restarted last month.
