With tyre businesses forced to face the unprecedented combination of global recession, high raw material costs and increasingly thorough legislative demands, the two years since the last Essen show have been some of the toughest in the market’s history. And yet, if you will excuse the pun, the tyre business seems to have a perpetual ability to “bounce back” in the face of adversity. In fact some brands – largely those operating in the mid and upper mid range segments – actually outperformed their pre-recession sales records, resulting in increased market share at least in terms of units sales.

That said, all businesses have had to cope with the same credit crunch-induced reticence amongst consumers to spend any money at all, while at the same time having to deal with (either directly for the manufacturers or indirectly for those importing, wholesaling and trading) high input costs for raw materials such as natural rubber.