Looking ahead to the rest of the year, Bridgestone Corp. believes the business operating environment will "remain challenging" due to rising raw material costs and economic stagnation.
"In the Americas, management projects unit sales of passenger car and light truck tires in the North American tire business to decrease compared with the previous year," say Bridgestone officials.
On the upside, in Europe, "management expects unit sales gains in passenger, light truck, truck and bus tires over the previous year."
Bridgestone recently released its first half results. The company posted net sales of $15.4 billion on net income of $350 million. Sales were 2% more than the company achieved during the first half of 2007. However, income was 30% less than last year's first half.
