MTS responding to recovery in a tyre market altered wholesale
There have been serious challenges to tyre distribution in 2020, and while demand has returned with the end of the national lockdown, Covid-19’s autumn rise means the spectre of spring’s market conditions looms over the winter months. This year, companies have needed to manage the operational problems posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns throughout Europe; they also needed to weigh up wildly fluctuating supply and demand. Whether there is a return to a concerted national effort similar to the UK’s actions in April and May or not, the lessons learned during this period continue to prove relevant. Meanwhile, the sector was already experiencing difficult times prior to the outbreak, with European tyre market demand flat overall in the light vehicle sector – a situation that certainly deteriorated in the pandemic. For the October magazines wholesale feature, Tyres & Accessories spoke to a range of players in the wholesale sector in Western Europe to look at the lessons of this year, and how recovery is progressing. We start with Micheldever Tyre Services, a leading UK player in the light vehicle tyre market especially, which has experienced a “strong” return of demand in the second half of the year, according to wholesale director Graham Mitchell.
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Yokohama’s Prometeon bid: Delayed by Covid, but nearing completion
Yokohama’s Prometeon bid: Delayed by Covid, but nearing completion Today Yokohama announced that it is consolidating its OTR tyre businesses into Yokohama Off-Highway Tires, which could be read as a prelude to the announcement Yokohama’s bid for the Prometeon tyre business. Roughly a year after the story broke, Yokohama’s bid for Prometeon isn’t the best kept secret in the tyre industry. Tyres & Accessories first heard talk of Yokohama’s bid for the ex-Pirelli industrial and commercial vehicle tyre business back in July 2019. The news was reported world-wide after we broke the story in September 2019, followed days later by third-party confirmation from the Chinese side of the deal. At that time, the deal was set to go public by the end of 2019. A few months later at the start of 2020, the timeframe switched to an end-of-first-quarter 2020 deadline. Then the coronavirus pandemic happened. And in the months that have followed things have gone quiet. So, where is Yokohama’s bid for Prometeon up to? The latest news is that deal is still on-track, but that there have been a few changes along the way. Here, Tyres & Accessories brings an update on the status of the acquisition and offers a different view on the deal by looking at it from a South American perspective.
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Falken Tire takes pole position in 2020 global social media ranking
As Tyres & Accessories annual global social media ranking enters its seventh edition, this year there is a new winner. Last year’s champion, Pirelli, has fallen two places to third position. At the same time, Sumitomo Rubber Industries’ Falken brand rose an impressive eight positions to take the top spot. And Pirelli wasn’t the only well-known name to downshift, with two other brands taking retrograde steps. At the same time, in a reflection of what has taken place in the UK-only ranking, the top 10 has a new entry, with previously 10th-ranked MRF being overtaken by another large Indian tyremaker.
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Online tyre prices went up as lockdown bit
In October’s magazine, Tyres & Accessories takes a closer look at the latest developments in the multifaceted online tyre business. This article specifically looks at online tyre buying and pricing in conjunction with tyre pricing and selling-way data specialists Encircle Marketing. However, this is just one dimension in the online tyre business. In addition to online tyre retail, there is also the question of online marketing, an area in which social networks are playing an increasing important role (see separate article for further details). And on top of this, there is the electronic infrastructure necessary for the tyre business to participate – beginning with increasingly smart web sites and going onto integrated pricing and marketing tools.
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Michelin tops 2020 UK social media ranking, Davanti enters top 10
For the fourth year in a row, Michelin can be found at the top of Tyres & Accessories’ 2020 UK social media ranking. Indeed, such is Michelin’s dominance in the annual table, only Goodyear (in 2012) and Dunlop (in 2016) have done enough to overtake the UK arm of the French tyre brand since our research began in 2011. In both cases, Michelin still managed to take second place.
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Hankook extending core competencies to drive future growth
Hankooks global launch of Laufenn brand commercial vehicle tyres, targeting the segment’s second tier, represents a substantial development for the company’s commercial vehicle tyre business. For the UK market in which Hankook is a leader in terms of sales, the initial nine Laufenn patterns cover more than 85 per cent of tyres in the market for goods and people transportation, as well as construction truck tyres. Most sizes also offer the three peak mountain snowflake (3PMSF) marking for use in winter conditions. The Laufenn range was due to be presented in the UK at the Commercial Vehicle Show, before the Birmingham NEC event was cancelled due to the pandemic. Tyres & Accessories took the opportunity of the launch to speak to Guy Heywood, Hankook’s European marketing and strategy director for its truck and bus business, and UK sales director Paul Emery about the addition of Laufenn to the manufacturer’s European commercial vehicle tyre portfolio, Hankook’s position as a leading player in the segment, and its response to the coronavirus crisis and the financial headwinds emanating from the pandemic.
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Green restart: Retreaded tyres as a decarbonisation aide
Despite the fact that the UK was in the middle of lockdown, Michelin Tyre Plc’s ultra-modern retread manufacturing operation resumed production at the end of April. In fact, according to the company, there were only two reasons that the Campbell Road, Stoke-on-Trent site paused manufacturing at all: because the coronavirus-related closures coincided with a pre-planned maintenance stoppage; and because – again due to Covid-19 – there was trouble securing deliveries of the right raw materials from the continent prior to April (see Michelin Stoke up-and-running, looking forward to ‘steady market growth’ for Michelin UK factory manager Francois Levert’s view on how things have progressed after reopening). Therefore, Michelin UK’s retread manufacturing operation only actually endured a three-week factory shutdown. The neighbouring UK headquarters opened in mid-July and so now its truck tyre and retreading business is putting the focus on success in the new normal. This began with a communications drive that has seen the manufacturer promote the ecological benefits of retreads. Tyres & Accessories spoke with Michelin Plc managing director Chris Smith in order to find out more.
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September registrations: Market shifts towards private ownership of hybrid cars
Overall registrations remain under great pressure, but the latest new car sales figures point to another bumper month for electric vehicles. Meanwhile, diesel-fuelled internal combustion engine vehicles have taken the biggest hit. There are also signs that vehicle ownership preferences are changing. But what does this mean for the shape of the car market that feeds aftermarket tyre sales?
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Tirescanner sales up 150% year-to-date
The last time Tyres & Accessories interviewed online tyre entrepreneur, Mike Welch, his latest venture Tirescanner was making in-roads in the US tyre retail market. Such was the concept’s growth that Welch had been pitching the business to investors in a bid to move onto phase two of Tirescanner’s development. Roughly a year later, T&A asked how things are progressing:
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Could continuous pyrolysis deliver savings for tyre manufacturers?
Waste rubber generated by tyre manufacturing could deliver increased energy savings and business opportunities according to IRR Waste 2 Energy. The company’s continuous pyrolysis technology, which is fully commissioned and in operation at its parent company Carlton Forest Group’s Worksop headquarters, has delivered “tangible results” in both “energy generation and the production of by-products such as pyrolysis oil and carbon char,” the company states. These materials can be refined further to produce high grade engine oil and recovered carbon black (RcB).
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Iran’s tyre manufacturing output refocuses on heavy tyres
The tyre manufacturing output of Iranian factories increased 26 per cent in the first five months of the current Iranian calendar year (1399 and specifically the period between 20 March and 21 August 2020) compared with the same period last year. Such growth is consistent with the Iranian tyre industry’s 10-year plan to double in size by 2025, which was publicised in 2015. And it also corresponds to earlier optimism related to Iranian tyre market growth, but what do the latest figures tell us about the product mix of the Iranian national tyre production base?
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Guizhou Tyre raises 1 billion yuan for Vietnam tyre factory in private share issue
On 4 September 2020 Guizhou Tyre Co. Ltd’s board of directors approved plans for a private share issue. The plan was to raise 1 billion yuan in funding via the sale of now more than 200 million shares to 35 selected investors. By 11 September, the company had received the green light from the state-funded Guiyang Industrial Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd. that it would purchase no less than 43.5 per cent of the issued shares.
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Toyo given free land as part of 364 million euro Serbia tyre factory investment
The Serbian state is set to give Japanese tyre manufacturer Toyo 637,455 square metres of land worth roughly 3 million euros for its newest factory. According to a Serbian State Aid Control Commission decision, the countries Tax Administration calculated that – based on a land valuation of 5 euros per square metre, Toyo will have to employ 523 workers indefinitely by 2023.
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Wall Street Wolves with a taste for tyres…Goodyear & the hostile takeover attempt of 1986
Robert (Bob) Mercer died in August 2020, aged 96. Reason enough to shed light again on Goodyear’s darkest hour and the effect it has had on the company up to the present day.
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Béthune tyre factory closure ‘the only viable path’: Bridgestone
Tyres & Accessories contacted Bridgestone for its response to the statement put out by French authorities following its decision to shutter its tyre factory in Béthune, France. Bridgestone addressed the characterisation of the closure as a “premeditated murder,” the idea that the plant has been deliberately allocated low-margin products, and that the plant had been passed over for investment.
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