Question

In section 2.1 you read about how we can model certain situations using linear equations. In particular, example 8 shows how you can create an equation to predict sales of a company

Pick a company whose sales you want to model and predict. Look up their sales information and pick 2 years of data. Using that information, create a linear equation that can be used to predict the sales of the company. Once you have your equation, predict the sales 2 years from now.

Make sure you include in your post the links where you found the relevant information. Clearly show your work. This includes naming the company, sharing the ordered pairs, defining variables, finding the slope, determining the equation, and then using that equation to predict.

Answer 1

The net Sales of The GOODYEAR TIRE and RUBBER Company ( available at https://corporate.goodyear.com/en-US/investors/financial-reports.html#section4) , were $ 15158 million in 2016 and $ 15377 million in 2017. Let the linear equation that can be used to predict the sales of the company be y = mx +c, where y is net sales of the company, x is the number of years from 2016, m is the slope of the line and c is the y-intercept i.e. the net sales of the company in the initial year. It may be noted that for the years 2016 and 2017, the ordered pairs are (0,15158) and (1,15377).

Now, since x = 0 in the year 2016, we have m = (15377-15158)/(1-0) = 219. Also, c being the net sales of the company in the initial year i.e. 2016, is equal to 15158 Then, the above linear equation becomes y = 219x + 15158.

Further, we can use the above linear equation to predict the net sales for , say, the year 2018 when x = 2. On substituting x = 2 in the equation, we get y = 219*2+15158 = 15596. Thus, the net sales of Goodyear, in 2018 are likely to be $ 15596 million.