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The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (Goodyear) is a manufacturer of tires. The Company, along with its United States and international subsidiaries and joint ventures, develops, manufactures, market and distribute tires for applications. Goodyear also manufactures and markets rubber-related chemicals for various applications. The Company is an operator of commercial truck service and tire retreading centers. In addition, it operates more than 1,600 tire and auto service center outlets where it offers its products for retail sale and provides automotive repair and other services. The Company manufactures its products in 61 manufacturing facilities in 25 countries, including the United States. During the year ended December 31, 2008, Goodyear operated its business through four segments: North American Tire; Europe, Middle East and Africa Tire; Latin American Tire, and Asia Pacific Tire.

Business Segments

Original Equipment Tires (27.3% of FY2008 Total Tire Sales)
OE Tires are new tires bought by manufactures to fit the specific needs of its vehicles. Within this category, Goodyear produces produces tires for passenger cars, light trucks, trucks and specialty vehicles. OE tire sales decreased by 15.7% in FY2008 compared to FY2007. The decrease in OE tire sales were mostly affected by operations in North American Tire (U.S. and Canada), where OE tire sales decreased by 22.9% compared to FY2008. The decrease was led by recessionary economic conditions resulting in lower demand for new vehicles.

Replacement Tires (72.7% of FY2008 Total Tire Sales)
Replacement Tires consist of tires bought by consumers to replace the tires on their vehicles. Replacement tire sales decreased by 5.5% in FY2008 compared to FY2007. Replacement Tire sales decreases were also led by recessionary economic conditions, but were less impacted due to less impact from the new vehicle industry.

Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) primarily conducts business in the automotive industry. Toyota also conducts business in the finance and other industries. It is organized in three segments: automotive operations, financial services operations and all other operations. Toyota’s automotive operations include the design, manufacture, assembly and sale of passenger cars, minivans and commercial vehicles, such as trucks and related parts and accessories. Toyota’s financial services business consists primarily of providing financing to dealers and their customers for the purchase or lease of Toyota vehicles. Toyota’s financial services also provide retail leasing through the purchase of lease contracts originated by Toyota dealers. Related to Toyota’s automotive operations is its development of intelligent transport systems (ITS). Toyota’s all other operations business segment includes the design and manufacture of prefabricated housing and information technology related businesses.

Business Segments
Business is divided into three main divisions:

Automobiles (89.5% of total Toyota revenue and 94.7% of net operating income)
The Auto segment includes the Toyota, Lexus, and Scion brands.

Toyota follows a pyramid strategy, selling large numbers of low-cost models (Corolla, Camry) and smaller numbers of higher-cost models (Tacoma pickup truck, Lexus luxury vehicles). This product breakdown reflects Toyota's strategy of segmenting the market into wealth levels and selling accordingly. Below are several of Toyota's most important models:

* Tundra: Toyota's newest pickup truck and a key piece of Toyota's North American strategy, the Tundra is intended to steal truck share from US competitors GM and Ford. Tundra sales started off strong, but recent market pressures (real estate and fuel costs) have worked to dramatically decrease demand. Toyota closed these two truck manufacturing facilities for several weeks during the summer of 2008, which reduced annual capacity in these two plants to 45% and 72%, respectively. Despite this, Toyota continues to invest in the product, hopeful that by adding a diesel variant and a larger heavy duty version of the truck they can continue to increase market share.

* Lexus: Toyota's luxury division, Lexus has been focused on North America since its 1989 launch. Last year some 80% of the 415,000 Lexus vehicles sold were sold in North America. Now Toyota is aggressively expanding the Lexus brand into Japanese markets. As a luxury brand, Lexus's success is particularly important to Toyota--each Lexus sold yields significantly more profit for the company than do mass-market counterparts.

* Prius: The Prius is Toyota's first hybrid line. A Lexus hybrid is just now entering markets, but Prius remains the hybrid standard for Toyota as well as the rest of the industry. This is due in part to Toyota's role as one of the first car makers to develop hybrid technology. However, Toyota now leases its technology to Ford and faces hybrid competition from Honda. With government subsidies for hybrid vehicles running out, Toyota may find itself depending on the innate popularity of the Prius to maintain sales. In the summer of 2008, Toyota was unable to produce enough of the Prius to satisfy market demand, which resulted in a 34% drop in Prius sales. Toyota has responded by announcing plans to begin manufacturing the Prius for the first time in the United States; in a Mississippi factory originally planned for truck and SUV production. Largely because of the Prius, Toyota vehicles represent 73% of the hybrids sold in the U.S.

Financial (5.5% of total revenue and 3.8% of net operating income)
Toyota's financial arm provides various credit services to customers.

Other (4.9% of total revenue and 1.5% of operating income)

Toyota's other segment includes revenue from investments as far-flung as housing, aerospace, marine operations, biotechnology, and telecommunications.