Nankang a Nürburgring advertising partner
Future visitors to the Nürburgring Nordschleife will see 87 metres of Nankang branding in the ‘Breidscheid’ area. The Taiwanese tyre maker has initially signed up as an advertising partner at the Nürburgring until the end of 2025.
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JK Tyre develops 80% sustainable tyre
A couple of weeks after Apollo Tyres unveiled car tyres containing 75% sustainable materials, JK Tyre & Industries has seen Apollo’s 75 and raised it 5. The company has produced a passenger car radial with 80% recycled and renewable materials – and says it will offer such a range “in due course.”
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Nokian Tyres: 18.8 million-euro Q1 2023 loss, but pricing should mitigate income problems
Nokian Tyres has presented its first quarterly results since the company sold its Russian operations to Tatneft its resultant production gap. In short, first quarter 2023 net sales were 236.4 million euros down 26.8 per cent compare with 322.9 million euros during the same period last year. That meant an operating loss of 18.8 million euros compared with 21.5 million euros of operating profit in the first quarter of 2022.
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Nokian Tyres’s Romania plant breaking ground in May 2023, 2-3 offtake deals to fill production gap
Nokian Tyres’s well-publicised exit from Russia has left it with a similarly well-reported production gap that continues to impact the company’s ongoing business. Speaking as part of the company’s first quarter 2023 results presentation, Nokian Tyres executives emphasised that “new capacity is our #1 priority” and shared further details of how they are planning to fill the firm’s production gap. We already knew that Nokian plans to expand its existing factories in Nokia, Finland and Dayton, USA as well as build a new factory in Romania and make off-take contracts with third-party manufacturers, what’s new is the detail and time frames associated with “building the new Nokian Tyres”.
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ETRMA: Unenviable tyre sales trend continues in Q1 2023
Manufacturer association ETRMA reports that its members experienced a “significant drop” in replacement market sales demand during Q1 2023. Compared to Q1 2022, sales within the replacement consumer tyre segment declined 12% and replacement truck and bus tyre market sales demand shrank by 18%. While sales of moto tyres were just 3% below the prior year figure, agricultural tyre sales were 39% lower.
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Continental opens global tyre Solution Center
To support the digitalisation of tyre solutions, production processes and business workflows at Continental Tires around the world, the company has assembled a team of IT and related specialists at a new facility in Portugal. This Solution Center is located near the Continental tyre plant in Lousado and employs around 80 people, with plans already in place to double the workforce by 2026.
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Prometeon Tyre Group signs contract with AB Agri
British manufacturer of pig and poultry feed ABN, a division of AB Agri, has signed a new ‘pay-as-you-go’ deal with tyre supplier Prometeon. Tyres supplied under the arrangement include Pirelli Triathlon steer axle fitment and the Prometec TG01 remould product for the drive axle. Trailers within ABNs fleet use the Pirelli G02 tyre.
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Goodyear completes plant expansion in Slovenia
In March Goodyear Slovenia concluded a 90-million-euro project to increase tyre production capacity at its Kranj plant by 25 per cent, a project that has created 160 jobs. The project commenced in January 2019 with a planned completion date of late 2021, however measures related to Covid-19 delayed work on the project.
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Brand Finance: Giti honoured by double Top 10 rankings
Commenting on the “excellent news” that it has retained tenth place amongst the world’s tyre makers on the Brand Finance Automotive Industry 2023 ranking of most valuable brands, Giti states it is “very honoured” to have received this accolade. The tyre maker also notes that Brand Finance listed Giti among the top ten tyre brands in its Sustainability Perceptions Value ranking.
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Report: Continental signed Russia divestment deal in February
Yesterday German newspaper FAZ named S8 Capital as the likely buyer of Continental’s business in Russia, including its tyre plant in Kaluga. Russian newspaper Kommersant adds further weight to the notion of a transaction involving the holding company.
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Hankook partners with Amazon Web Services and Snowflake in AI tyre development plans
Hankook Tire’s holding company (Hankook & Company) along with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Snowflake are working on an integrated AI data platform to improve the performance and quality of tyres. According to the company, the digital ecosystem should also help to develop autonomous driving technology, increase efficiency in product development and increase quality through the analysis of manufacturing data.
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Hankook official partner of Devon & Cornwall truck shows
Following on from a successful 2022, Hankook Tyre UK has signed up again as official partner at this year’s Devon Truck Show and the Truck Show Cornwall, which will respectively take place on 13 and 14 May at Honiton Showground and 29 and 30 July at Stithians Showground, Truro. Hankook says these events will be an “excellent opportunity” for it to exhibit products from its truck tyre portfolio and to liaise with new and existing fleet partners.
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Bridgestone increases renewable energy use in Japan
With the changeover of three facilities this month, Bridgestone is powering all but one of its tyre and raw material plants in Japan with 100% renewable purchased electricity. The Kurume, Amagi and Saga sites are the latest where Bridgestone is sourcing renewable power. A total of ten plants in Japan now run on purchased renewable electricity, the earliest having changed to renewable sources in July 2021.
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Continental in Russia: S8 Capital named again as likely buyer
Without naming its sources, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) stated yesterday that Continental intends to sell its tyre factory in Kaluga, Russia to holding company S8 Capital. The publication shares that Continental is awaiting the transaction’s approval by Russian authorities. A Continental spokesperson told FAZ that the sale is at an “advanced stage.”
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Mission “successfully completed”? The Goodyear-Cooper integration and its contradictions
When Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. announced at the end of January that 500 jobs are being cut worldwide and linked this to business performance in the EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa) region (see “Goodyear reports losses of $104 million in Q4 2022, points the finger at Europe”, T&A 3/2022, page 18), executives were effectively acknowledging the significant pressures facing the business. When Goodyear published its full-year 2022 and fourth quarter 2022 figures a few days later, the red numbers highlighted the pressing reality of those problems. Within that broad picture, it now seems clear that the US$2.8 billion Cooper takeover initiated two years ago has not yet brought the promised return, something Goodyears market capitalisation and the relative profitability of its competitors neatly illustrate. Meanwhile, some within Goodyer refer to the integration as “successfully completed”, but without offering details. In other words, the supposed success of the Goodyear-Cooper integration doesn’t match the company’s sub-par financial performance. With that in mind, here we take a pan-European look at those particularly contradictory perspectives.
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