Conti reports higher sales for '14 fiscal year

The company said that it continued to progress “despite the weak growth in Europe, Russia and South America. We achieved this in spite of the further uncertainty added to the already volatile market development as a result of considerable exchange rate fluctuations in some cases or, as seen recently, the drop in the price of oil.”

“The adjusted EBIT exceeding [$5 billion] is further proof of the outstanding performance achieved yet again by our more than 190,000 employees,” said Continental Chairman Elmar Degenhart during the announcement of preliminary key financial figures at the North American International Auto Show, which runs Jan. 12-25 in Detroit.

Stating that Continental expected a rise in global passenger car sales, the chairman said: “We are therefore aiming for sales growth of around 5 percent to a figure exceeding $36 billion.

“With this, we want to once again securely confirm our double-digit adjusted EBIT margin,” Mr. Degenhart added, also noting that the consolidation effects from the Veyance Technologies Inc. acquisition have not been taken into consideration in this outlook.

Conti will present its preliminary business figures on March 5.