Continental is reported a drop in sales for the first quarter of 2020 of €9.8 billion, considerably down from the it €11 billion it took him two sales during the first quarter of 2019. But while this was a bad quarter for the tire company, things are expected to get considerably worse during the second quarter of this year as a result of the pandemic crisis. CEO Elmar Degenhart said that the company usually generates 75 percent of its sales in Europe and North America. “However, both regions have been severely affected by the corona pandemic since the end of March, while automobile production in China is stabilizing again.”
But like many other listed companies in Germany, it has warned that it is unable to give a detailed outlook for the rest of 2020 saying only that it expects sales and earnings to be significantly below what they were in 2019. Last year the company brought in a total of €44.5 billion. CFO Wolfgang Schäfer said that due to the deteriorating economic environment, the company would reduce investments by at least 20 percent compared to 2019 and that various cost-cutting measures were being put in place. He said the company’s goal was to make it through the crisis without having to request state aid.
