Bridgestone withdraws from China’s truck tyre OE market

Recently, Bridgestone stated that it will withdraw from the Chinese truck and bus radial (TBR) on 31 December 2023. Tyrepress China has learned that the tyre manufacturer’s TBR business in China’s replacement market will operate normally.

The reason given by Bridgestone is that its commercial tyre production and sales in China have declined, especially the OE business has been dramatically affected. Bridgestone said that after adopting many optimisations, including “optimising production capacity and reducing costs”, the results did not meet expectations and failed to change the predicament.

The tyre manufacturer said it would negotiate with customers about its supply business and inventory digestion in 2023 and strive to minimise the shutdown’s impact.

At this time, it is unknown how many jobs will be eliminated as a result of this adjustment. In January 2023, when Agustin Pedroni became the general manager of Bridgestone (China), he mentioned that it had approximately 4,200 employees in China.