Pirelli Tyre income up 7.5 pc to €201 m; revenue up 12.4 pc to €2018 m

Milan, Italy -- Pirelli Tyre reported a 7.5 percent rise in income from ordinary operations of €201 million for the first half of this year, compared to €187 million during the same period last year.

Half -year revenues for the Italian company's tyre business rose by 12.4 percent to €2018 million, which included sales of €1403 million from its consumer arm, an increase of 11 percent, and €615 million from the industrial business, an increase of 16 percent.

The company said the increase in revenue was mainly due to a growth in volume and a focus on the ''product mix''.

Pirelli Tyre also incurred a non-recurrent cost of €6 million from its planned flotation.

''The reduction in the profitability percentage [of Pirelli Tyre] was mainly due to an increase in raw material costs and the start-up effect of the new factory in China,'' the company said in a statement.

The parent company, Pirelli & C SpA, reported a 6.7 percent increase in operating income for the half of €216 million from revenue of €2445 million, a rise of 7.2 percent.

The group's net debt increased to €1575 million from €1495 at the end of March which, Pirelli claimed, was due to dividend payments of approximately €150 million.

''The results for the first half allow the confirmation for full-year 2006 of forecasts of an improvement in operating results compared with 2005, barring external factors of an extraordinary nature which today cannot be foreseen,'' the statement said.

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Half-year results from Pirelli & C SpA Group