Halfords Autocentres reports 89.6% increase in pre-tax profit – next stop ‘market leadership’
The Halfords Group reported a strong set of full-year 2021 that saw the company generate total sales of 1,292.5 million in 2021, up 13.1 per cent compared with the 2020 financial year (2020: 1,155.1 million). The financial report, which was published on 17 June 2021, shows that by all measures pre-tax profits skyrocketed. Indeed, Halfords Group reported profit before tax after the impact of IFRS 16 of £64.5 million, which amounts to a headline-grabbing increase of 184.1 per cent compared with the previous year. Halfords Autocentres accounted for an increasing proportion of the group’s overall sales figures, reporting 2021 sales of £252.5 million, up 31.6 per cent compared with 2020’s £194.1 million.
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Michelin top, Conti moves up to 3rd – all change at the top of the 2021 Leading Tyre Companies table
While the world is still adjusting to the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been no small measure of disruption in the standings of the world’s leading tyre manufacturers, according to our latest top 25 table. Six of the top 10 have changed places this time round, with the headline news being that Michelin has regained pole position after several years of having Bridgestone in first place. At the same time, Continental has stepped up into third position, leapfrogging the previous incumbent Goodyear.
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Enso start-up aims to reduce carbon and microplastic emissions with tyres
Enso aims to disrupt the market by combining sustainable, energy-efficient, high-mileage anti-particulate, electric vehicle-orientated tyres with a direct-to-customer, tyres-as-a-service business model. Following the news that an Enso tyre-equipped Renault Zoe set a new hypermiling record at least partly based on its tyres, Tyres & Accessories found out more about the company, its products and its financial position.
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Kerr’s Tyres joins the top 25 UK tyre retailers
Following the publication of our run-down of the top 10 UK tyre retails on Wednesday and then our overview of positions 11 to 20 yesterday, today’s concluding part of our 2021 tyre retail landscape series takes a closer look at positions 21 to 25 on the leader board, culminating in the addition of new entry Kerr’s Tyres in 25th place.
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Triangle enters new phase in the UK OTR development
The off-the-road (OTR) segment is historically strong for Triangle Tyre. The China-based brand has recorded sustained and continuous growth around the world since it produced its first radial OTR tyre in November 2002, gaining a stronghold in the sector in Europe. The tyre-maker has achieved this by securing original equipment fitments with a wide range of manufacturers, demonstrating its ability to produce tyres for many OTR specialisms; it is a global supplier to Caterpillar, as well as supplying such construction and mining equipment makers as Komatsu and Liebherr. It has also built a network of professional distributors across Europe.
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Autocentres growing in prominence – UK’s top tyre retailers 2021 (11-20)
As can be seen in the top 10 table published yesterday, Halfords Autocentres remains in second place nationally in our 2021 ranking of the UK’s largest retail operations by branch count. Continuing our three-article series on this subject, today’s instalment focuses on places 11 to 20 and finds that the medium to large sized positions are increasingly being taken by autocentre style businesses that make as much money from parts and repairs as they do from tyres (and more than traditional fast fits).
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The top 10 UK tyre retail chains 2021
With a pandemic, an MOT extension and three lockdowns to contend with, describing the last year as “difficult” would be an understatement. Nevertheless, tyre retailers have demonstrated that they are not only key workers essential to keeping the British Isles rolling, but also versatile and resilient businesspeople during the last 12 months. A quick look at the top 25 UK tyre retail chains 2021 table reveals that it has been a more eventful year than normal in terms of branch openings and closings, but overall the clear message is one of consolidation. As a result, the top 25 UK tyre retail chains wield more power than ever. Specifically, the top 25 now run 2528 branches between them. When our coverage of this area began back at the end of the 2008/2009 tax year, the figure was 1978. During the interim, the rough estimate for the total number of tyre retailers national has stayed stable at around 10,000 specialists (that number is roughly double that if you include general garages). This means the top 25 occupy roughly 25 per cent of the number of branches, up 6 percentage points since 2009.
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Torque from the Top – Andrea Manenti, vice president – Bridgestone North Europe region
Continuing our ongoing series of interviews with leading tyre executives, this month’s edition hears of Bridgestone’s achievements in the realms of sustainability, material development, retreading and more. Tyres & Accessories: What effect has the pandemic had on the day-to-day running of your business? Have you had to make any fundamental changes? Torque from the Top is a regularly feature in the print edition of Tyres & Accessories magazine. Not a subscriber? No problem, click here to become one.
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Romanian car tyre retreader Radburg prospering in adversity
Founded in roughly 1994 as a casing collection company which focused on imports, Radburg is now one of the leading retreaders in Europe and certainly the biggest car tyre retreader in Eastern Europe and Romania. What’s different about Radburg compared with most of the other retreaders across the continent, is that the majority of Radburg’s annual retreaded tyre output (70 per cent) is made up of passenger car products.
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Michelin presents sustainability-infused strategy to capital markets
Groupe Michelin’s Capital Markets Day presentation, conducted via webcast on 8 April, set out its agenda for the next decade, putting its plans in front of leading global banks and financial firms. Circling around a central theme of sustainability, the group executive committee, led by managing chairman Florent Menegaux and general manager and chief financial officer Yves Chapot, showed how Michelin intends to “diversify while strengthening” in order to achieve its key economic and ecological targets. Chapot and Menegaux stated that expanding “non-tyre revenue” up to more than one-fifth of the group’s turnover by 2030 would make the group more agile and robust in the face of future crises. The current global health crisis has been instructive in this regard; the committee credited the development of the group’s non-tyre portfolio with assisting in its resilience over the difficulties of 2020, and now intends to continue the acceleration of its diversification. Its digital and materials innovations will simultaneously “deliver new growth,” while contributing to the overall strength of the group: a leitmotif of the committee’s presentation.
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Bridgestone discusses ‘multi-faceted fleet customer approach’
Commercial vehicle tyre suppliers are increasingly required to be multifaceted in their approach. Following its acquisition of TomTom Telematics in 2019 (now known as Webfleet Solutions), Bridgestone’s transition from tyre producer to mobility solutions provider with increasingly integrated approaches to fleet services moved up several gears. Demand for fleet-based mobility grows year-on-year, the tyre manufacturer says, with fleet managers demanding reliable and innovative services to maximise their effectiveness and efficiency. Webfleet Solutions has allowed Bridgestone to support business process streamlining with seamless end-to-end systems. These include transport management systems, on-board cameras, and route optimisation.
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4×4 and SUV tyre sales down 12 per cent
For the last few years Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) take-up has continued apace. Indeed, according to the latest UK vehicle registrations figures, cars that can be described as SUVs now occupy a significant portion of new vehicle market share. Indeed, the Nissan Qashqai crossover was the third most popular purchase in February 2021, according to the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). And the Volvo XC40 as well as the Volkswagen T-Roc and Tiguan also figure in the top 10. Of course, all these vehicles need tyres so there is every chance that the recent trend towards SUV tyre replacement sales is also going to continue over the next few years. But what about last year? With these trends in mind, the month’s SUV tyre feature takes a closer look the best products on the market beginning with a detailed look at the latest market data produced in association with GfK.
Continue Reading![The sequel with no [pr]equal – a closer look at the Pirelli Cinturato All Season SF 2](https://www.tyrepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Cinturato_All_Season_SF_2_2.jpg)
The sequel with no [pr]equal – a closer look at the Pirelli Cinturato All Season SF 2
At the start of February, Pirelli introduced its Cinturato All Season SF 2 and Cinturato P7 tyre ranges in a virtual event broadcast from Milan. The virtual launch also previewed the forthcoming Cinturato Winter 2, which will be released in time for the next winter season (and therefore sometime between Summer and Autumn 2021). The unifying theme was Safety on the move, but Pirelli’s latest all-season offering was really centre-stage. Shortly after the event began, launch proceedings got underway with Francesco Sala, senior vice president Manufacturing at Pirelli (pictured) setting the launches in the context of “a completely refreshed Cinturato range”. These come against the background of significant research and development efforts intended to work with the company’s best-fit OE/replacement policy. Specifically, Sala explained that digital prototyping has resulted in 400 homologations across 128 car models and 40 models. And the success of this approach can be seen in the number of homologations already achieved for the new products.
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Brand Finance: Michelin most valuable and strongest tyre brand
Following last month’s preview of the 2021 report, Brand Finance has released its full Tyres 10 ranking. According to the 2021 table, the tyre sector has taken a hit over the last year, with all 10 brands losing brand value. Brand Finance unsurprisingly puts this decline down to the pandemic-related behavioural changes: “Owing to the lack of travel due to lockdowns, car sales are declining, which means tyre brands are selling less units, resulting in a drop in market equity across the industry. Furthermore, since the economy has been riskier in general over the past year, investor risk has increased, triggering a rise in the cost of capital.”
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Test World becomes first centre in Europe to offer ASTM 1805 winter tyre testing
This year the well-known Finland-based tyre testing centre Test World turns 30. What better way to celebrate than to redouble its efforts to become a comprehensive test centre for summer, winter and all-season tyres? Following the acquisition of Test World’s parent company Millbrook by UTAC CERAM, which was completed at the start of February 2021, key developments towards this goal include: the purchase of the world’s first all-electric winter tyre traction testing light truck and the addition of a new soon-to-be opened proving ground in Morocco. Tyres & Accessories me up Jukka Antila, Technical Director at Test World as well as Millbrook business development manager Andrew Kern in order to find out more.
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