Nokian Tyres achieved net sales of $252.6 million during the first quarter of 2024, up 1.4% from the same period last year.
However, Nokian’s year-over-year operating profit declined by $28 million - or 18.8% - during the same period.
Jukka Moisio, the company's president and CEO, says that the “car and tire market continues to be demanding due to economic uncertainties and low consumer confidence.
“During the first quarter, we faced additional disadvantages due to the Red Sea crisis as well as the political strikes in Finland.”
The company lost three weeks of production, including two weeks of passenger tire production, during the first quarter of 2024 due to labor strikes.
“Despite these setbacks, we continue building the new Nokian Tyres, according to our plans.
"Important and exciting milestones will be reached in 2024, when we celebrate the 90th anniversary of our innovation, the winter tire.
“Our new and the world’s first zero CO2 emission tire factory in Romania will start production, US investment phase will be completed and new innovative products will be launched.”
U.S. plans
Last summer, Nokian told MTD that it planned to double production at its consumer tire plant in Dayton, Tenn.,
“In Dayton, we exclusively make all-season and all-weather tires and now have the capability to make light truck tires here,” Wes Boling, Nokian’s senior communications manager, said at the time.
“We’re ramping up that volume.”
Products made at the Dayton factory include the all-season Nokian One, the all-weather Nokian WR G4 and the all-terrain Nokian Outpost line.
Nokian’s winter tires are made in Finland.
In addition to investing in U.S. production, Nokian is building a new, 600,000-square-foot distribution center at the Dayton plant.
The warehouse will join Nokian’s network of nine distribution centers throughout the United States and Canada and will serve the company’s growing number of dealers in the Sun Belt.
The bigger picture
By 2027, the Dayton plant will make up 25% of Nokian’s annual global production, according to Nokian officials.
The company’s plant in Finland will generate 35% and its recently announced plant in Romania, which is slated to begin production in 2025, will manufacture the rest of what’s projected to be a total global, annual output of around 15 million units.
This will “almost approximate the former level of production at our Russia facility,” said Boling.
Nokian no longer operates in Russia, where it had a plant that produced around 16 million tires a year.
Roughly half of that production was sold within Russia.
