Michelin sees first-quarter sales below consensus due to higher seasonality

(Reuters) – Michelin expects its sales in the first quarter to be slightly lower than the market consensus due to the more severe seasonal season in the first half of 2025, according to the investor call version that was held late on Wednesday.

The French tire maker said that the definitions imposed by the United States will add to the fluctuations in the market, but its local to local strategy will prove value in dealing with it.

Why is this important

Michelin hires more than 23,500 people on production sites throughout the United States and Canada. It has two plants in Mexico – Quertaro and Leon – and three in Canada – Pictou, Bridgewateer and Waterville.

Modern US executive orders analysis still requires clarification and cannot be extracted at this stage, the Michelin administration said during the call.

The North American market, including Mexico, formed 38.6 % of its annual sales in 2024.

Main quotes

“The final products from other regions to the United States can be affected by a 25 % tariff that applies to car and cars parts, however it is still to be confirmed whether all tires are under this tariff.”

“For Michelin, the main flows are Europe to the United States in agricultural tires and Indonesia to the United States in second -level passenger tires.”

“With regard to the definitions of revenge on non -American countries, the story has just started. What we can say is that the United States of America is a country issued by Michelin, and therefore exports from the United States to Europe and Asia are very limited.”

“In the very volatile current context, we will not develop any look today, we will keep it to release our Q1 sales later in the month.”

In numbers

Michelin confirmed that she expects the volume sizes to decrease between 6 % and 8 % in the first quarter, driven by the decrease in the demand for cars after the end of 2024.

On average analysts expected to report a quarterly sales of 6.67 billion euros (7.33 billion dollars) and a decrease in the volume of 2.6 % in consensus provided by the company on February 17.

Regarding the definitions of US president Donald Trump, the group said that 70 % of its tires sold in the United States were manufactured in the country.

He also pointed out that natural rubber was not affected by any of the modern advertisements, and that we can consider self -sufficiency to produce artificial rubber.

Michelin will report the results of the first quarter on April 24.

($ 1 = 0.9105 euros)

(Participated in the reports of Matthias de Rosario and Alessandro Baroudi, edited by Mila Nessi)