FINDLAY, OH -- Record quarterly sales pushed Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. to first-quarter 2007 net income of $20.8 million, up from a loss of $5 million for the same period last year.

Cooper posted first-quarter sales of $689 million, up from 2006’s sales of $597 million. Cooper’s North American tire group saw sales grow 8 percent to $535 million, even as industry replacement market consumer tire shipments fell about 1 percent.

“Our team has worked very hard to implement many, many cost savings and profit improvement initiatives and we are seeing the result of those strong efforts,” said Cooper President and CEO Roy Armes. “In North America, we are more efficient in our plants, we have a better, more competitive product offering, including the recently launched Cooper CS4 touring line, and our customer service levels are excellent in spite of carrying much less inventory than in the past. Our European operations had a great quarter, with strong sales growth and improvements in efficiency. Asia was solid operationally, but the improvements were somewhat masked by startup costs as we accelerate the ramp up of production at our new Cooper-Kenda plant."