Tyre markets set to fall in 2009

ERJ staff report (DS)

The global tyre market is set to decrease by around five percent in 2009 with little recovery before 2011, according to speakers at the World Rubber summit in Singapore.

Robert Simmonds of LMC international said the global market for car tyres will fall to about 1240 million units in 2009 from around 1300 million units in 2008. The figure for 2010 will be around 1260 million. In truck tyres, the decline will be somewhat sharper with the 2009 figure falling to 156 million from 162 million in 2008 and rising again to 159 million in 2010.

Hidde Smit of the IRSG presented broadly similar figures. He presented a base scenario based on current WTO forecasts of global growth. This suggests the gloal truck tyre market grew by 0.2 percent in 2008, will fall by 4.2 percent in 2009 and rebound in 2010 with growth of 7.9 percent. In the car tyre segment, he said the recession would be worse, with negative growth of 0.2 percent in 2008, falling to a decline of 5.2 percent in 2009; a further fall of 0.2 percent in 2010 and a bounce back in 2011 with 4.9 percent growth.

Both speakers emphasised that their figures are, at best, provisional. The WTO has revised its figures for global growth a numer of times since the third quarter of 2008. Further revisions from the WTO would have a significant effect on the forecasts.

Both speakers said the markets of North America and Western Europe are excessively exposed to the original equipment market, and this will make the declines in those markets more serious than the global figure.

Also, both China and India are expected to see growth in their domestic markets, so this will offset the declines in the more developed markets.

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