Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108) plans to acquire TomTom Telematics BV, a subsidiary of TomTom NV of the Netherlands. The acquisition is expected to take place during the second quarter of the business year ending December 2019 for a purchase price of 910 million euros ($1.04 billion). TomTom Telematics operates a digital fleet solutions business that provides cloud-based services such as vehicle...
Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108) is set to launch the Duravis G640, a tire specialized for community buses, on March 1. The tire will be available in a single size. This comes as the number of community buses in operation rises across Japan. Providing user convenience and responding to diversifying needs in ways that existing bus services are unable to cover, examples...
Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108) subsidiary Bridgestone Tire Japan Co. Ltd. recently unveiled the Regno GR-XII, a new product under the company’s premium Regno brand of passenger car tires. Speaking at the event, Director Junji Nagashima said that Bridgestone emphasizes having its tires combine strong results across seven metrics of driving performance. These are a sense of stability; dry performance; wet performance;...
Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108) is looking to boost sales of its Blizzak VRX and Blizzak VRX2 lines of passenger car studless tires. While the company managed strong sales for its VRX2 line last year, a representative said that this was largely due to the appeal of it being a new product at the time, adding that the plan this season is...
While snowy conditions around Japan have started later than average this winter, recent developments are hinting at a more favorable tailwind for sales of studless winter tires. Coming into mid-December, northern Japan is finally seeing full-fledged winter conditions, while elsewhere even parts of the Kanto region are beginning to see snowfall. Publishing a demand forecast this summer for the second...
Bridgestone Corp. (TYO:5108) CEO Masaaki Tsuya recently sat down for an interview with Japan Rubber Weekly. Talking about the importance of service networks in the tire industry, Tsuya said that these will be crucial going forward as lifestyle changes exert an influence on the market. As a general rule, Tsuya said, customers buy tires not because they want to but...
