Sentury Tire joins the Shenzen Stock Exchange
Having received approval back in June, Qingdao Sentury Tire has successfully completed its Initial Public Offering (IPO) and is now listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (China) as of 11 September 2020. 11 per cent of the companys shares were valued at 1.31 billion yuan (162 million euros; £149.859 million) by investors, resulting in a theoretical total valuation of 1.47 billion euros. The offered shares offered were oversubscribed 2887 times over. But what is the company planning to do with its newly-raised funds?
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Agri Star II ‘satisfies all modern demands’
Visitors to the LAMMA show way back in January were amongst the first anywhere to see Alliance’s new standard tractor radial, the Agri Star II. The new tyre came to market a few months after this, but corona lockdowns got in the way of a more thorough launch – until now.
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Alliance: Performance & price make 372 VF an ‘unbeatable’ package
The Alliance brand has gained a strong position in certain segments of Europe’s agricultural tyre market. Alliance Tire Europe claims a leadership market share of up to 30 per cent for row crop applications and a 20 to 30 per cent share for implement applications. But Alliance’s primary ambition is to break into the tractor segment in a bigger way. In recent months it introduced a couple of products to support this drive.
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4×4 tyre sales down 6%
4x4 retail tyre sales have long been a growth area and the UK market constitutes one of the leading lights in Europe. More recent growth has been driven by similarly strong SUV vehicle sales as well as consumer switches towards all-season products. At the same time, more practical and off-road-orientated vehicles have also been supporting 4x4 tyre sales. This article will appear in full in the September edition of Tyres & Accessories. Not yet a subscriber? You can change that here.
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All-season tyre growth, especially for premium brands – GfK
The Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown has made 2020 an annus horribilis for the UK car tyre market, with a near quarter-long lockdown slashing miles driven, original equipment sales due to prolonged factory closures, and reducing sales opportunities further with the government’s MOT exemption. However, tyre businesses have begun ramping up again in response to the reopening of business sectors, people returning to work, and the possibility that private car usage could become increasingly popular as commuters avoid public transport – though the trend for working from home could create more than a headwind for any growth in miles driven. Perhaps the greatest driver of UK car tyre sales growth in 2020 could be the projected spike in MOTs in the autumn, as the period of exemption expires for many pandemic affected motorists. Halfords Autocentres estimates that there could be an 85 per cent jump in demand for MOTs in October - click here for Tyrepresss own analysis of the MOT situation. Why is this important in a feature about all-season and winter tyres? As we are about to see, the all-season tyre segment continued its impressive growth over April 2019 - March 2020.
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Shifts in leading tyre manufacturer rankings, 2015-2019
Over the last five years of data collection for the Tyres & Accessories’ ranking of the leading tyre manufacturers, a few trends can be observed – see accompanying graphs for more details. Firstly, it is easy to see that there are a few separate groupings of rival companies within the top ten. In our first chart, we can see that Continental has continued to progress in narrowing the tyre sales gap with Goodyear, partially because Goodyear has yet to regain the level of sales achieved in 2015, despite improved results on its half-decade low in 2017. Tyrepress noted in 2018 that based on tyre volumes, Conti looked likely to overtake Goodyear in light vehicle (passenger car and light truck) tyre volumes, showing how it has gained ground on the previous ‘Big Three’. Regardless of their order, it has been appropriate to talk of a global Big Four tyre manufacturers for a few years.
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‘Planning, communication’ help Trelleborg implement plans during pandemic
Trelleborg’s reorganisation, which gave greater prominence to tyres and wheels via its Trelleborg Wheel Systems business, was detailed at the end of February, just prior to the global spread of Covid-19 causing monumental disruption throughout Europe. Tyres & Accessories commented at the time that we planned to meet UK managing director Richard Lyons for the first time since his January appointment at the event in Sweden – as it turned out, Lyons was unable to make the trip for reasons detailed later. At the end of June, T&A met Lyons – fittingly on Microsoft Teams – to discuss how the pandemic has affected the market and the company’s response to the challenges of 2020, in addition to talking about how he is settling into his new role within the company.
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Goodyear Farm Tires continue to grow in UK through pandemic crisis
Titan International has been manufacturing Goodyear Farm Tires in USA for more than a decade. It returned to the European and UK markets last year after Titan purchased the licence. It has also made a significant investment in new plant and equipment to manufacture tyres specifically for the UK and European markets. Lindsay Hart, tyre sales director at Titan Europe and Goodyear Farm Tires, gave Tyres & Accessories an insight into demand for agricultural tyres during the Covid-19 crisis.
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How the UK aftermarket is enduring Brexit and lockdown weather
The last time Tyres & Accessories took a close look at the aftermarket sector back in July 2019, we took the optimistic view that the UK aftermarket space would be able to weather the Brexit storm. Of course, back then Brexit and trans-Atlantic trade wars were the most significant pressures on aftermarket parts segment. Now, however, things are considerably more complex and unpredictable. So, in this analysis we examine the most recent pre-lockdown data as well the latest mid-lockdown information in order to answer the question: is the UK aftermarket still weathering the storm?
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UHP tyres one-third of European replacement market by 2024: Astutus
Leading tyre market data analyst Astutus Research has predicted that the European trend for higher performance tyres looks set to continue. The analyst’s report, ‘Future Dynamics of the European PCLT Tire Industry’, published in association with Tyrepress, has been updated for 2019 with an eye to the trends of the next five years. The analyst states: “The movement towards tyres with a higher rim diameter is clear within the European PCLT tyre replacement market. This reflects the trend towards larger tyres on new car models and changes in the composition of the car parc, with a greater share of SUVs. The replacement market reflects the changes in the original equipment segment, albeit with a lag.
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Growth in upper UHP tyre sizes continues
The latest GfK data based on its tyre retail sell-out sources - what it refers to as its panelmarket - shows that UHP tyre sizes, especially above 17, continued to represent a growing market in 2019. The analyst compared UHP tyres, here defined as 17” and above, in the period from January 2018 to December 2018 with January 2019 to December 2019. The first column shows that 17” takes a share of the total tyre market of just over one-fifth (21 per cent). 17” has been a popular size for many years, benefitting from the transition of more compact cars onto higher rim sizes. However, growth in 17” dimensions has now plateaued, with this figure representing no change on the previous year’s data.
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Investigating the national Police fleet’s tyre demands
During recent weeks and months, the coronavirus lockdown has seen miles-driven figures fall through the floor. However, some fleets don’t stop moving. And, as anyone who has clapped for our carers will tell you, the blue-light services have been as busy as ever. Of course, the medics, police and firefighters rely on tyre technicians to keep them mobile. So, with this in mind, and as part our June magazine’s Fleet Tyre feature, we have been investigating what the blue light fleet’s tyre demand really looks like.
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Tyre distributors come together for ‘Kick-starting your business’ webinar
Tyre distributors from across the country have come together to support the restarting of the tyre trade. Large and small retailers from St Helens to the South East worked together to produce the inaugural Tyrepress webinar entitled “Kick-starting your tyre business’.
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Falken: stock availability, proven performance means UHP opportunity
The coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdowns mean that sales of car tyres especially have sustained a harsh blow around the world. But as measures introduced to halt the spread of COVID-19 begin to be eased, motorists will steadily begin to use their cars again, increasing demand. In the car tyre sector, high value, ultra-high performance segments could prove vital, as better potential margins offer attractive opportunities for increasing cashflow quicker. The other side of that coin is that motorists’ finances are also under pressure, putting the price they pay for their car tyres under even greater scrutiny. Could this, therefore, present an opportunity for mid-range brands to make a case for their products, offering more palatable performance compromises compared with premium rivals than the lowest-priced brands?
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Coronavirus creates shipping problems for tyre importers
Chinese celebrations of Lunar New Year (25 January) were muted this year by the emerging coronavirus crisis, with the huge amount of personal travel associated with the holiday period down around 45 per cent. Yet global business’s reliance on China’s manufacturing meant that large orders were, as usual, preplanned to take into account the two to three weeks of manufacturing slowdown at this time of year. In the UK tyre sector, the result is that a large number of tyres that will likely exceed some distributors warehousing capacity are now arriving at UK ports. Freight forwarder, Maritime Cargo Services is offering one solution to companies experiencing this problem.
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