Nokian Tyres cuts sales, operating profit guidance for 2023

(Reuters) - Finland's Nokian Tyres on Tuesday lowered its net sales and operating profit guidance for this year, citing lower demand for tyres.

The company said in a statement that it now expects segment net sales to be approximately 1.15 billion euros to 1.2 billion euros ($1.22 billion-1.27 billion) and operating profit to be around 5.5% to 6% of net sales.

Nokian reported preliminary segment sales for the third quarter at about 275 million euros, down from 333.5 million euros a year ago. It said that a second dividend instalment of 0.20 euro per share will be distributed for the year 2022.

Nokian said segments net sales and segments operating profit exclude the exited Russian business and other items not indicative of business performance.

The exit from Russia has led to Nokian losing 80% of its annual passenger car tyre production capacity, with the company now focused on sourcing from China and ramping up production at existing Finnish and U.S. sites.

($1 = 0.9445 euros)

(Reporting by Baranjot Kaur and Devika Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Potter and Leslie Adler)