NTDA Tyre Talk focuses on “combatting illegal part worn tyres”
Early in the Tyre Talks that ran in parallel with Octobers Brityrex, NTDA director Stefan Hay offered a strong, but pragmatic line on the current state of part worn sales within the UK tyre market as well as suggestions for how the market should approach this part of the business. Hay began by quantifying the current scale of demand. In short, the NTDA director suggested that there were upwards of 4.5 million part worns being sold on these shores each year. While this is at the top end of part worn market estimates – which are notoriously difficult to objectively and empirically measure – it is difficult to counter the widespread feeling that “part worn dealers are opening up at an alarming rate” across the country. Indeed any alarm associated with the possibility that the part worn market could equate to circa 10-15 per cent of the whole passenger car markets replacement tyre demand (based on a 30+ million total market figure) or that this could well be growing in line with the openings of new part worn dealers, will only be amplified by the examples of non-compliance and downright dangerousness that recent NTDA, TyreSafe and Trading Standards research revealed.
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Michelin buffs away loss-making Laurent pre-cure business in Germany
Weak demand and aggressive competition has led to seven-figure losses at the Laurent Reifen retreading plant in Germany, and in response the Michelin-owned company has decided to close its pre-cure retreading operations and lay off almost a quarter of its workforce. But it is questionable whether this measure will suffice to halt the flow of red ink required to write the firm’s balance sheet in recent years; apparently the complete closure of the Laurent Reifen site near Berlin has already been internally discussed.
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Fleet Symposium brings stakeholders together
Just over six months since the last time Tyres & Accessories met Michel Rzonzef at the Geneva Motor Show, the Goodyear executive has switched segments. When we met before he was vice president of the Consumer Tire Business at Goodyear EMEA. Now he is vice president of Commercial Tires EMEA. So, with the move from consumer to commercial still relatively fresh, T&A took the opportunity to discuss the development and direction of the truck and fleet tyre business with Rzonzef during the course of the recent Goodyear Fleet Symposium in Brussels on 14 October. Henk van Tuyl, Goodyear’s director of regional technology - Heavy Tires EMEA, also joined in with the conversation.
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Transport is changing, which means the tyre business will too
Towards the start of October I had a chance encounter with a University of Oxford academic, researching the economics of Transport. Generally people understand that there is a certain cache associated with such a role. And people may have an idea of what life is like for academics that are part of elite institutions. But at the same time those in industry often question how close to the market and how practical the suggestions made by such academics really are. Talking to Dr David Bonilla (Senior Research Fellow in Transport, Energy Economics at St. Anne’s College, Oxford) between speeches at Goodyear’s recent fleet symposium really brought this home (See our complete Fleet Business feature in November’s Tyres & Accessories for more on the subject).
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DfT completes tyre labelling consultancy, continues with risk-based enforcement plans
The UK government’s Department for Transport announced that it had concluded its consultation on the enforcement mechanism for European tyre labelling legislation which began on 10 April and ran for around six weeks. As a result, the National Measurement Office (NMO) will now be basing its enforcement mechanism on a risk-based process using measures including criminal sanctions despite widespread tyre industry support for civil sanctions too. However, questions remain about exactly what this might mean in practice and – as we have seen – some will be disappointed that calls for civil penalties to be part of the enforcement mechanism appear to have gone unheard.
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Giti’s European R&D centre ready for growing OE business
It’s been a year since Tyres & Accessories first met the recently-appointed head of Giti Tire’s new R&D Centre Europe. At the time, R&D director Stefan Fischer shared the tyre maker’s plans and showed off the still largely-empty premises where specialists would soon be hard at work. A lot has changed in 12 months: Upon returning to the Hannover, Germany-based facility, we saw it was well and truly up and running and, in the important area of original equipment development, even further established than originally planned.
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Kings Road Tyres appoints Simon Tidmarsh commercial director
The Kings Road Tyres Group has appointed Simon Tidmarsh as its new commercial director – Group. The appointment follows the group’s acquisition of Lincolnshire based specialist tyre wholesaler, Totrax Ltd.
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Aeolus Tyre is a ‘strategic’ enterprise for China
Even today the number of Chinese tyre makers, and tyre brands, remains exceptionally high. The necessity for consolidation is obvious and something China’s authorities are well aware of. And in the People’s Republic of China, where the state has a closer relationship to the market than in the West, how a firm appears to measure up can be crucial. Tyre makers who fail to meet targets set for them fall by the wayside while those who establish a global presence grow in favour and are viewed as strategically significant enterprises. This state-business relationship also means companies can rely upon government support in one form or another – and this certainly applies in the case of Jiaozuo, Henan Province-based Aeolus Tyre Co., Ltd.
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Goodyear suggests tyre label incentives, mandatory truck TPMS
Goodyear today published a whitepaper culminating in recommendations including incentives for truck fleets to purchase high label-rated tyres and the mandatory fitment of TPMS in commercial vehicles in a way similar current rules for passenger cars. Other recommendations include: offering incentives for fuel efficient fleets; clarity on reforms to rules related to weights and dimensions of commercial vehicles; further guidelines on cross-border operations of larger vehicles; more support to make the most from new telematics technology like harmonized standards for telematics; and extra support from regulators to the road fleet sector to attract and retain skilled drivers.
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Continental furthers Asian football activities with Chinese sponsorship deal
Football is Continental’s chosen brand promotion method in many parts of the world, and its involvement in the game has been extended by its entry into a four-year collaboration with the Chinese Football Association. This deal with the CFA was announced at the start of Continental’s AFC Asian Cup 2015 Australia Trophy Tour on 26 September. Continental states that this new agreement, along with its AFC Asian Cup 2015 sponsorship, represents a specific focus on the Asia Pacific region.
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Tyre unit sales stabilised amongst ETRMA members during Q3 2014
Unit sales for tyre makers belonging to the European Tyre and Rubber Manufacturers Association were stable in on-road segments during the third quarter of 2014, while the agricultural segment experienced a year-on-year decline. Unit sales of passenger car tyres increased 1.4 per cent to 58,409,000 pieces, a development the ETRMA attributes to a growth in new car registrations. Commercial vehicle tyre unit sales remained relatively flat, declining only 0.23 per cent to 2,552,000 pieces, while two-wheeler tyre sales were up 0.90 per cent to 1,797,000 units. The only area of the market where ETRMA members saw major movement was in the agricultural segment, and this was movement of the unwelcome variety, as unit sales dropped 8.97 per cent to 386,000 pieces.
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Western Europe launch – development of Starco’s solid forklift tyre ranges continues
Although at three years of age Starco’s solid industrial tyre production plant in Sri Lanka is still a relative infant, initial targets set for the facility have already been reached and the company is now looking ahead to the next milestones. This sort of success doesn’t occur by accident, and the good experiences Starco has enjoyed so far in Sri Lanka are the result of planning that began long before the plant was even set up. Tyres & Accessories recently met a key figure Starco assigned to implement the solid tyre project, and learned a little more about the factory and the products being made there.
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The Tyre Industry Awards 2014 in photos
In honour of the recent inaugural NTDA Tyre Industry Awards 2014, we have put together the following photo gallery in partnership with the association. To view the gallery simply click the photos below. You can read a summary of who won what here.
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Chengshan to buy out Cooper for US$286 million
Chengshan Group Company Ltd. intends to acquire Cooper Tire & Rubber Company’s 65 per cent ownership in the two companies’ Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Company Ltd (CCT) joint-venture. Owing to the fact that the purchase offer is based on a pre-agreed “call option”, which itself is priced on the back of an agreed valuation of US$440 million, this means Chengshan has agreed to pay roughly US$286 million for the company. Coopers share price fell a dollar from around $29 to roughly $28 in response to the announcement.
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NTDA Tyre Industry Award 2014 winners announced
The winners of the 2014 Tyre Industry Awards were announced on 8 October at the 85th annual NTDA Dinner. The awards once again generated wide interest within the British industry, with 14,000 votes cast across the five voting categories. In the Tyre Centre of the Year category, Encircle Marketing’s series of mystery shopping exercises dictated the winner; all four finalists were rewarded by a plaque.
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