Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. said Friday that it recorded unconsolidated pretax profits of 6.72 billion yen for the January-June period.
This marks a 23 percent increase from a year earlier and an all-time high for the first half of the company's business year.
The tire maker mainly attributed its strong showing to a 5.8 percent increase in sales, which hit 106.45 billion yen. It also said a restructured product distribution system contributed to the increase.
Its net profits for the period, however, fell 47.9 percent to 2.01 billion yen.
This decline was due to extraordinary losses, including an evaluation loss of 1.94 billion yen on shareholdings.
Total sales included 75.13 billion yen from sales of auto tires, up 10.2 percent, and 24.04 billion yen from sporting goods, down 3.2 percent.
Sumitomo said it plans to pay an interim dividend of 4 yen per share, unchanged from a year earlier.
The company is targeting pretax profits of 15 billion yen for the entire business year, up 15.3 percent over the previous year, and net profits of 5.5 billion yen, up 3.3 percent.
These forecasts are based on projected sales of 227 billion yen, up 5.2 percent.