US Tyre Industry Declines During Q1

US OE tyre sales during the first quarter of 2007 have dropped significantly since the previous year. Passenger car tyre sales were recorded as 11.7 million units during the first three months of the year, 9.5 per cent less than during the corresponding period of 2006, which in turn was 800,000 units less than during the first quarter of 2005. Total OE tyre sales for passenger car, light and medium truck reached 14.2 million units, 11.2 per cent less than the 2006 figures.

The replacement tyre market, while not showing the huge losses suffered in the OE segment, did not show significant signs of growth either. A total of 46.5 million passenger car tyres were sold during the first three months of the year, 1.3 per cent more than during 2006. However the total replacement tyre market for passenger cars and light and medium trucks stagnated at 58 million units, more or less unchanged from a year earlier. As a whole, counting both replacement and OE markets, the US tyre market slightly shrank, decreasing by 2.4 per cent to 75.2 million tyres.