Despite $635 million in higher costs last year related to record rubber prices, Continental A.G. improved its pre-tax earnings ratio about two percentage points to roughly 9.5 percent, according to Conti Executive Board Chairman Elmar Degenhart.
Sales for the Hannover , Germany-based auto supplier rose 46 percent from a depressed 2009 level to $33.7 billion.
Among the sales high points: record sales of 20 million winter passenger and light truck tires, Mr. Degenhart said at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. He did not elaborate on the company’s tire divisions’ operations, but both the consumer and commercial tire business units posted gains in operating earnings through nine months of the fiscal year on double-digit sales growth.
Conti will announce final figures for fiscal 2010 at the annual financial press conference in
