History of the brand Yokohama
The operations of Yokohama Rubber are divided into two main segments. Read and find out more about the history of this Japanese firm.
The first segment, the Tyre Group, is responsible for more than 70% of overall sales, and divides its operations into three market categories: original equipment, replacement tyres and tyres for export. The second segment is the Multiple Business Group, which deals with everything apart from tyres: rubber industrial and engineering goods such as belts, hoses, sheets, coverings, and even sports equipment. For the greater part of its existence the firm concentrated mainly on its domestic market, but intensive consolidation in the world tyre and rubber industries persuaded it to expand its operations geographically at the end of the 20th century. This international activity, combined with emphasis on research and development, enabling the continuous creation of new products, gave the concern a strong position among its global competitors.
The beginnings of Yokohama
Founded in 1917, one of many Japanese industrial firms formed as a result of Japan’s opening up to the outside world at the end of the 19th century, Yokohama Rubber expanded in the 1920s by finding niches in the developing Japanese industrial infrastructure, where innovation was badly needed. The firm’s greatest success in that period was the production of a cord tyre, ...
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