Bridgestone

"Serving society with superior quality." Those words of our founder, Shojiro Ishibashi, state our mission simply and precisely. That mission is what the trust we earn and the pride we feel are all about. Shojiro Ishibashi founds Bridgestone Ltd. in Kurume, Japan, as the first local tire supplier for the nascent Japanese automotive industry. Bridgestone's U.S. operations are integrated with those of Firestone, forming the Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. subsidiary. A long and bitter strike begins at five Bridgestone/Firestone plants in the United States. A spate of rollover accidents--some fatal--involving Firestone tires and Ford Explorer vehicles leads to the recall of 6.5 million Firestone tires. Recall-related tensions lead Bridgestone to sever relations with Ford Motor Company in North and South America; the company's U.S. unit loses $1.7 billion because of costs associated with the recall, restructuring efforts, and lawsuit settlements. Bridgestone Corporation is the world's leading manufacturer of tires, and the company is number three in the North American tire market, trailing the other two of the world's "Big Three" tiremakers, Michelin and The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. In addition to its flagship Bridgestone and Firestone brands, the company makes and markets tires under the names Dayton, Seiberling, Road King, Gillette , and Peerless, as well as private and house brand tires. Bridgestone also makes the raw materials that go into tires and maintains an extensive network of company-owned tire retail outlets, including nearly 2,300 in North America and about 700 in Japan. The company's tires also are sold through tens of thousands of independent retailers operating in more than 150 countries around the world. Nontire products, which account for about 20 percent of sales, include automotive components, particularly vibration- and noise-isolating parts, such as engine mounts and air springs; industrial products, such as polyurethane foam, conveyor belts, and rubber tracks for crawler tractors; construction and civil engineering materials; and sporting goods--golf balls and clubs, tennis balls and rackets, and bicycles. Products are manufactured within more than 40 tire plants and more than 60 nontire plants on six continents. Geographically, sales break down as follows: 44 percent from North and South America, 37 percent from Japan, 11 percent from Europe, and the remaining 8 percent from elsewhere (Africa and the Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan). Before World War II, Bridgestone's business--like that of other major Japanese industrial concerns--was focused on supplying military requirements; at the same time, Bridgestone tires also supplied the growing Japanese automobile industry. Production was based at two plants, one in Kurume, the other in Yokohama. Growth after the war was rapid, with the establishment of four new production facilities in the 1960s and six during the 1970s. Bridgestone's first overseas factory was established in Singapore in 1963, with further factories built in Thailand in 1967 and Indonesia in 1973. Bridgestone Singapore ceased operations in 1980 following the Singapore government's lifting of tariff protection for locally made tires. In 1976 Bridgestone set up a sales company in Hamburg, Germany, in partnership with Mitsui. This new company, named Bridgestone Reifen G.m.b.H., was intended to increase tire sales in the important West German market. In 1990 Bridgestone set up a new subsidiary in London, Bridgestone Industrial, to handle industrial rubber products throughout Europe. Since the 1980s Bridgestone's most significant expansion has been by acquisition, acquiring majority interests in Uniroyal Holdings Ltd. (UHL), the South Australian tire manufacturer, in 1980 and a Taiwanese company in 1986. In 1983 Bridgestone gained its first U.S. production base by purchasing a plant in LaVergne, Tennessee, belonging to the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. This proved to be the first