No recovery in US tyre demand yet

The latest RMA produced US tyre market shipment figures do not suggest any kind of immediate recovery is on the horizon. According to financial analysts who trawled through the figures, despite the fact that the comparison period wasn’t particularly strong, the market was down 1.5 per cent year-on-year in June. Commercial vehicle tyre shipments saw an even sharper decline (-11 per cent) but this was also described as a tougher comparison.

“We wouldn’t deem June numbers as particularly bad versus expectations, but we cannot think a recovery is imminent either,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote on 19 July. However, the bankers do believe that tyre companies will benefit from tailwinds on raw material prices. That said risks are also said to increase as the raw material credit is being used in tyre price discounts in the mass segment.