Bridgestone Group Announces First Half Performance Report for 2008

The Bridgestone Group (hereinafter referred to as the company) has announced the performance report of its industry from the first half of the fiscal year from January 1 to June 30, 2008. According to this report, the company’s total sales in the first half of the year were 1,641,100 million yen (approximately RMB 99.76 billion), an increase of 2% over the same period of last year. Among them, the tire business, sales of 1,327.6 billion yen (about 80,702 million yuan), an increase of 2%; diversified product business, sales of 321.8 billion yen (about 19.56 billion yuan), and The same period last year.

In the first half of 2008, the Bridgestone Group faced the severe challenges posed by rising global raw material prices and rising energy costs. At the same time, the personal consumption power of the Japanese market weakened and the economic growth slowed down. The new housing projects in the US market decreased, personal consumption stagnated, and the economy slowed down. The European market also showed a trend of deceleration in economic development. However, in Asia, all countries represented by China have maintained sustained economic growth. Affected by these combined factors, especially raw material prices, the operating profit of the company in the first half of the year was 83.6 billion yen (approximately 5.08 billion yuan), a year-on-year decrease of 18%; and the regular profit was 68.6 billion yen (approximately 4.17 billion yuan). RMB), a year-on-year decrease of 25%; medium-term net profit of 37.2 billion yen (approximately 2.26 billion yuan), a year-on-year decrease of 30%.

With respect to the tire business, the company has taken measures such as launching attractive new products in Japan and overseas markets, integrating and strengthening global production bases, and continuing to promote the strengthening of the strategic product-focused field. In Japan, sales of tires were basically the same as last year. In the Americas, sales of tires for passenger cars and small trucks in the North American market of the company have fallen sharply from last year due to the reduction in vehicle production. However, sales volume of tires in the retail market has increased steadily compared with last year, especially UHP ( Sales of strategic commodities represented by ultra-high performance tires have risen sharply, while sales of truck buses have fallen sharply from last year due to reduced demand from the matching market. In Europe, the sales of passenger car and small truck tires were basically the same as last year, while the sales of RFT tires (Note) and UHP tires as strategic commodities increased significantly compared to last year; the sales of truck bus tires continued to grow over the previous year. For special-purpose tires, the sales volume of radial tires for large-scale construction vehicles has also increased significantly compared to last year thanks to continued strong market demand. In view of the above, the company's tire business achieved a 2% increase in sales. However, due to the huge impact of high raw material prices, the operating profit of the tire business was 60.9 billion yen (about 3.701 billion yuan), a decrease of 19% year-on-year.

In terms of diversified product business, it was also affected by the high prices of raw materials. Although sales were basically the same as last year, operating profit fell 15% year-on-year to 22.7 billion yen (approximately 1.38 billion yuan).

In the above environment, the Bridgestone Group continued to expand its highly competitive products globally in order to achieve its ultimate business goal of “establishing a truly world-leading status among tire and rubber companies”. Sales, increase production capacity, and strengthen technological advantages; on the other hand, due to changes in the competitive structure and demand structure, the business development environment is becoming increasingly severe, the company will be targeted to expand the sales of strategic products, and construction is not limited to simple commodities. The business model of sales, and promote the development of this model on a global scale.

* For ease of reading, the exchange rate of June 30, 2008 was 6.0788 yuan = 100 yen.

* The above contents refer to the translations of Japanese contents issued by Bridgestone Corporation. All contents are based on the Japanese original text.