This growth has been driven by the strong tyre sales to end customers in Delticom's online shops, of which there are now 81. During the third quarter alone almost 190,000 customers made purchases from these online shops – bringing the total number of customers to 1.7 million. More than 20,000 partner workshops in Europe, North America and Asia fit the tyres bought online to the customers' cars. eCommerce revenues in the first nine months lifted to EUR 132,2 million – up 39% compared to the first nine months of 2006 (EUR 95.3 million). 91% of the total revenues were recorded in this segment (previous year: 88%). Revenues in the Wholesale division were up slightly year-on-year from EUR 13.6 million to EUR 13.9 million.
"Over the last months, Delticom has been successful in developing its eCommerce business – both in the fiscal year 2007 to date and since our IPO in October last year," commented Frank Schuhardt, Delticom AG's CFO, adding: "We are well prepared to face the coming winter tyre season. A representative study by the E-Commerce-Center (ECC) at the Institut für Handelsforschung (IfH - Institute for retail research) at Cologne University recently showed that our German online shop ReifenDirekt.de is around 24% cheaper on average for top-quality winter tyres than the other bricks-and-mortar tyre retailers in Germany. The Internet has become a widely recognized sales channel. Delticom's growth is in line with the trend: more and more tyres are being bought online."
Delticom AG will publish its full nine-month report for 2007 on November 21, 2007. In addition the Managing Board will present the company on November 12, 2007 at 9.00 am in Frankfurt at the German Equity Forum.