Nokian Tyres' sales grew by 10 percent

In 2024, the net sales of Nokian Tyres totalled EUR 1.3 billion, which is 9.9% more than the previous year, and operating profit increased from EUR 65.1 million to EUR 71.4 million, the Finnish company said in a statement.

Despite the growth in annual figures, Nokian's shares, according to Reuters, fell in price by 13%, as in the fourth quarter of last year, operating profit was significantly lower than expected. Analysts predicted that this figure would be EUR 59.5 million, but in the end, operating profit decreased by 19% compared to the last quarter of 2023 and totalled EUR 35.9 million.

Nokian notes that last year's profitability was affected by a number of negative factors, such as the crisis in the Red Sea and strikes in Finland, which led to a decrease in production volumes, delivery delays and an increase in logistics costs.

According to the new CEO and President of Nokian, Paolo Pompei, who headed the company on January 1, 2025, last year "we continued to implement the development strategy through strategic investments in increasing production capacity and releasing new innovative products", and the key events of the year were the opening of a new tire plant in Romania, the completion of the investment phase at the enterprise in the USA and the development of new "green" raw materials.

According to him, Nokian increased sales of passenger car tires, which was facilitated by high demand in Central Europe. "We also maintain strong positions in Scandinavia, but we need to improve the indicators in North America, where they were especially low in the fourth quarter," Pompei added.

As the head of Nokian notes, in 2025, the company will continue to release new products and improve its productivity while strictly controlling costs, but "recent announcements about new trade tariffs [US President Donald Trump announced his intention to introduce new duties on goods from Canada, Mexico and China] create uncertainty". "We are analyzing the possible consequences of the emergence of new tariffs and are developing a strategy for working in new conditions," Pompei said.

Nokian predicts that in 2025, the company will continue to increase sales and improve operating profitability compared to the previous year, and financial performance will be positively affected by the growth of capacities in Romania and the USA, as well as good availability of finished products.