One of the largest truck tyre wholesalers and distributors in the UK and Ireland, Kirkby Tyres has a team of specialists dedicated to the TBR segment and is investing to make further inroads with its exclusive brands. We recently spoke with commercial director Michael Rosenthal to find out about the latest products from Double Coin and Sailun as well as Kirkby’s activities in the truck business.
In the first half of 2022, Sailun Group’s operating income rose 21.28 per cent year-on-year to a record high of CNY 10.493 billion (£1.29 billion). Net profit attributable to the listed company’s shareholders rose 1.6 per cent year-on-year to CNY 715 million (£87.63 million), and net cash flow from operating activities amounted to CNY 457 million (£56.91 million), up 42.15 per cent year-on-year.
The World Brand Lab has released the list of Asia’s 500 most influential brands in 2022. Tyrepress analysis shows seven brands related to tyres among those ranked, namely: Bridgestone, Hankook, Kumho, Doublestar Linglong, Sailun, and Sumitomo. The Sumitomo brand involves diversified industries, but its subsidiary Sumitomo Rubber is a world-renowned tyre manufacturer.
The National Tyre Distributors Association presented the Tyre Industry Awards 2022, sponsored by Sailun Tyres, at the Vox Conference Centre in Birmingham on 6 October. Below you can view a gallery of the award winners from the evening ceremony, hosted by former BBC news presenter and triathlete Louise Minchin, NTDA chief executive Stefan Hay and national chairman Simon Wright. Click here for the list of winners, and here for the full list of nominees.
June and July saw a spate of factory investment and opening announcements. First there’s the news that Linglong manufactured its first tyre at its brand-new Serbia tyre production plant at the end of June. Of course, this project has been underway for some time, but the fact that it got going just before the end of the first half of 2022 is noteworthy for two reasons. Firstly, notwithstanding the inhibiting effect of general market headwinds associated with pandemic fall-out and war in Ukraine, the project is basically on-schedule. And secondly, it demonstrates that no enthusiasm for Western and specifically European tyre production has been lost since the nullification of European import tariffs against Chinese-produced truck tyres roughly a month ago.
The Tyre Industry Awards 2022 were presented on 6 October at Birmingham’s VOX Conference Centre during the National Tyre Distributors Association’s 93rd Annual Dinner. The awards ceremony was sponsored by Sailun Tyres for the eighth consecutive year, while supplier member Maritime Cargo Services sponsored the dinner. Former BBC news presenter and triathlete Louise Minchin hosted the awards alongside NTDA chief executive Stefan Hay and national chairman Simon Wright. For a gallery of the winners, click here.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission reviewed and approved Sailun’s convertible bond public issuance application on 13 September. The tyre company plans to raise about 2 billion yuan (about 250.2 million pounds, 286.3 million euros), mainly for constructing two factories in Vietnam and Cambodia. Sailun said that investing in two overseas factories could further expand its tyre production capacity overseas and increase its manufacturing scale and market share.
Macrolink Group, a significant shareholder of Sailun, recently received a civil ruling from the court in Beijing. The document shows that the court has accepted the reorganisation application filed by Hunan Fortune Group against Macrolink Group. It is reported that the cause of this incident was that Macrolink Group failed to pay off its due debts, and Hunan Fortune Group was the creditor.
On 20 July 2022, the launch ceremony of the Advanced Polymer and Metal Materials Industrial Park in Qingdao City, Shandong Province was held. Tyrepress noted that among the seven projects that started construction, the Functional New Material Industrial Park belonging to the National Engineering Research Center for Rubber and Tire (NECRAT) was included.
The recent news that Sailun Tyre plans to invest 17.48 billion yuan in setting up two factories in Dongjiakou, Qingdao, has received widespread coverage in Chinese media. The investment in the tyre factory is 15.18 billion yuan, involving 20 million sets of semi-steel radial tyres, 10 million sets of all-steel radial tyres, and 150,000 tons of OTR tyres. The investment in the 500,000-ton new material factory is 2.302 billion yuan. Sailun’s various production bases will mainly use the material factory’s products. According to Sailun’s calculations, the Dongjiakou tyre factory will achieve 21.9 billion yuan revenue and 2.96 billion yuan profit yearly. The annual turnover of the material factory is 12.035 billion yuan, and the average annual net profit is 923 million yuan.
Sailun Tire Americas is planning to open a US technical centre in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA that will develop tyres for passenger, light truck, SUV, CUV and medium truck tyres applications as well as tyres for electric vehicles. Tyre developed there will ultimately end up at both OE and replacement destinations.
On 24 June 2022 Sailun decided to invest 15.18 billion yuan in building a new tyre factory in Dongjiakou, West Coast New District, Qingdao City, Shandong Province. The planned annual production capacity is 20 million sets of semi-steel radial tyres, 10 million sets of all-steel radial tyres and 150,000 tons of OTR tyres. At present, the Sailun board of directors has passed this investment proposal.
Michelin remains the world’s leading tyre company by sales turnover, but Bridgestone is close behind in one of three close battles distributed across the table. For the first time, our research ranking market-leading global tyre manufacturers in terms of sales turnover converted into euros, illustrates the impact of recent high-profile acquisitions as well as the ongoing disruption of pandemic on the wider market landscape.
Chinese listed tyre companies have successively released their 2021 annual reports in recent weeks. Here, Tyrepress analyses these annual reports’ comparing developments in revenue, operating conditions and overseas factory strategy. And the short story is Linglong remains the largest tyremaker amongst the top 10 listed Chinese tyre companies and that Sailun is the fastest growing.
It doesn’t suffice for a product to be sustainable. The processes used to manufacture this product must be sustainable, too. This is the thinking behind EcoPoint³, the innovation in compounding technology that Sailun Group highlighted during The Tire Cologne. Arriving soon in tyres sold in the UK and Europe, EcoPoint³ results from more than a decade of development.
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Kumho Tire
NTDA
NTDA
Sailun
Macrolink group
Screenshot from local media coverage
Sailun
Sailun Tire Americas
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