Goodyear sales top $20B despite strike

AKRON, Ohio — A two-month long strike at the world’s largest tiremaker let some air out of profits, but still couldn’t totally deflate the company, Goodyear says.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber’s fourth quarter 2006 sales were nearly $5 billion, a 2 percent increase over 2005, despite a long strike by the United
Steelworkers at 16 of the company’s North American plants last fall. The company says it topped a record $20 billion for the year.

The company blamed the strike for an 8 percent decline in tire volume and a reduction of fourth quarter sales by $363 million.

It could have been worse, though, as the company says sales benefited from improved pricing and product mix in the company’s international tire businesses.

For the 2006 fourth quarter, Goodyear reported a net loss of $358 million ($2.02 per share), which includes the strike impact of an estimated $367 million.

“We made outstanding progress in several key focus areas in 2006, in spite of the challenges from the strike, high raw material costs and difficult market dynamics,” said Robert J. Keegan, chairman and CEO.

“Looking beyond the impact of the strike and our restructuring actions one can see the true performance of our business and the significant
strength in the underlying results.”