Michelin Says Truck Tyre Sales Won’t Improve Before 4Q

Michelin managing partner, Michel Rollier has spoken has predicted that the currently stagnant truck tyre market won’t get any better until at least the closing stages of 2009. Qualifying the depressing news with the positive observation that the passenger car tyre market appears to be showing signs of picking up, Rollier told reporters: “There are some improvements in light-vehicle tyres, but in truck tyres there frankly isn’t much happening at all.”

According to Michelin’s predictions, the global truck-continues its downward spiral in the next two quarters, with the full-year drop likely to be steeper than in 2008, when demand for replacement tyres plunged 9.7 per cent in Europe and 8.2 per cent in North America, according to company data.

Car production shows signs of picking up in some areas after OEMs idled factories to clear inventories, Rollier told journalists at the company’s headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand. However, Deutsche Bank analysts said that they still expected the Western European car market to drop by 10 per cent in 2009e to 12.3 million after a -8 per cent fall in 2008. Writing in an investor’s note, the analysts explained that the decline would have been significantly worse without the implementation of scrappage schemes: “We estimate they have an overall positive impact on car demand of approximately 1.2 to 1.3 million units, of which more than 50 per cent are from Germany alone. This is a high 10 per cent of the European market. Since these incentives aren’t maintained next year, the market will drop.”

As a result they expect the European new car market to total 11.5 million units in 2010 down 6 per cent on 2009, with the biggest decline coming from Germany (-21 per cent). In the context of the last two downturns, Deutsche Bank said the 2008-10 period is the worst in the last 40 years.