On 4 September the 18th China International Tire Expo (CITExpo) officially opened in Shanghai. Tyrepress China was present and found that many well-known tyre companies, including ZC Rubber, Sailun, Prinx Chengshan, Guizhou Tyre, Doublestar, and Jiangsu General have all made appearances at this exhibition and brought their flagship products.
In the first half of 2023, ZC Rubber’s revenue was 17.374 billion yuan (about £1.89 billion; €2.21 billion), an increase of 11.24 per cent from 15.618 billion yuan (£1.7 billion; €1.98 billion) in the same period last year. During the same period, the net profit of ZC Rubber was 1.625 billion yuan (approximately £177 million; €207 million).
On 9 August, Shen Jinrong, chairman of ZC Rubber, went to the factory in Thailand to inspect the work, and discussed with the senior executives of the Thailand factory on increasing production and reducing costs.
Recently, the World Brand Summit 2023 was held in Beijing. Tyrepress China learned that nine tyre manufacturing companies had been listed in “China’s 500 Most Valuable Brands”.
Last week, ZC Rubber hosted a dealer conference and driving experience event for European dealers at the Nürburgring Nordschleife that provided its European partners an opportunity to personally experience the performance of two flagship tyres. The company also spoke about the path it intends to take with Westlake and Goodride.
China’s biggest tyre maker wants to grow even larger and expand its manufacturing footprint to Europe and North America, producing tyres that approach the premium market. To finance these ambitious plans, ZC Rubber will debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in the not-too-distant future.
There are many changes in our latest leading tyre manufacturers ranking. The 2023 table, which lists the world’s leading tyre companies according to their full-year 2022 financial results, particularly highlights the shifts that have taken place this year in the second half of the top 20. Meanwhile, the top nine tyremakers appear to be an increasingly stable group. Between places nine and 10, there is still a gap of some 1 billion euros, something that is clearly hard to overcome for newcomers. However, as insurmountable as it appears, the gap is obviously narrowing.
Several years ago, a large Chinese tyre maker expressed to us its confidence that it would supply original equipment tyres for Europe within a decade – the assumption being that its tyres would arrive on Chinese vehicle brands imported into the region. Keeping an eye on OEM deals in China thus provide insights into which tyres we may see as original equipment in the coming years.
On 22 March, Shen Jinrong, chairman of ZC Rubber, summarised the Chinese tyre industry after the epidemic at the China Rubber Conference 2023. He said that during the three years of the epidemic (2020-2022), China’s tyre industry’s business environment and ecological chain had undergone significant changes.
On 10 March, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province’s environmental protection department accepted the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) document of Zhongce Qingquan’s waste tyre treatment project. After completing this project, the subsidiary of ZC Rubber will be able to process 20,000 tons of waste tyres (crumb rubber) per year.
ZC Rubber has launched a line of passenger car tyres developed for electric vehicles. Initially available only in the tyre maker’s home market of China, EV Pro products feature “notably reduced rolling noise” and “increased fuel efficiency” as well as “improved grip performance” for EVs. The tyre maker says it will soon introduce more EV tyre options for global markets.
The European Commission has provisionally recalculated anti-Chinese-produced truck tyre import tariffs to between €21.12 and €61.76 per tyre, equating to a reduction of between 0 and 51 per cent, depending on the manufacturer. Consultation on the provisional recalculation is now open until 23 January, before the final determination will be made on 25 January 2023.
Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. Ltd (ZC Rubber) recently issued an update on the progress of its initial public offering (IPO). According to the data, Zhongce Haichao (a company established by four local Hangzhou enterprises in 2019 in order to invest in ZC Rubber, namely Hangzhou Great Star Industrial Co., Ltd., Hangcha Group Co., Ltd., Juxing United Holding Group Co., Ltd., and Hangzhou Haichao Enterprise Management Partnership (Limited Partnership) holds 41.08 per cent of the tyre manufacturer’s shares and is the company’s controlling shareholder. Qiu Jianping and his daughter Qiu Fei hold 46.95 per cent of the shares and corresponding voting rights of ZC Rubber through Zhongce Haichao and several other companies and therefore control ZC Rubber.
In addition to naming Mark Turner its European Agriculture Tyre Sales Director, ZC Rubber has appointed John Ruddy European OTR Tyre Sales Director. Ruddy, who first joined ZC Rubber as European OTR Sales Manager in 2019, brings decades of experience within the European OTR tyre industry to his new role.
In 2022, several significant events took place in China’s tyre industry. These things had a profound impact on the tyre industry not only in 2022, but for a long time.
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China Rubber Conference 2023
Zhongce Qingquan
S. Hermann & F. Richter; Pixabay
ZC Rubber