Tyre market meltdown accelerates in January

ERJ staff report (DS)

Paris - Michelin has updated its website with tyre market data for the month of January. The latest figures are, if anything, even worse than December's numbers.

In radial truck OE sales, although China appeared to recover somewhat, the declines in other major markets are horrendous. Europe's sharp decline continues to accelerate. Year-on-year sales were down by an almost unbelievable 58.6 percent. This follows declines in December and November of 40.7 percent and 36 percent respectively. The North American market performed only marginally less badly, with January sales down by 41.9 percent.

The site gives only percentage changes, not absolute numbers.

The Brazilian market's sharp slowdown continued in December. Although truck OE sales were up by 13.2 percent during 2008, January sales were down by 28.7 percent - a somewhat better performance than December, which showed a massive drop of 45.1 percent. China saw a welcome reversal, with sales up by 10.3 percent, a sharp recovery from the fall of 27.5 percent in the month of December. Japanese OE sales, however, plummeted, showing a fall of 59.9 percent in January, even worse than the -38.6 percent fall seen in December.

Truck replacement tyres followed the same pattern of sharp declines everywhere except China. European truck tyre markets fell by 32.6 percent; slightly worse than the 31 percent decline seen in December. North America fell by 22.6 percent in January, still worse than the 15.9 percent fall in December. In Brazil, January sales fell by 27.8 percent in comparison with growth in 2008 of 15.6 percent.Japanese replacement sales fell by 28.7 percent, an even steeper decline than the 25.8 percent seen in December.As in OE sales, China saw some limited growth with sales up by 5.6 perent in January.

The OE car business continues to face a meltdown. Michelin said the total European OE market for car tyres in January was down by 46.1 percent compared to last January - an even steeper decline than the 39 percent fall in December. The North American market is impossibly bad, with OE sales in January barely one third of the sales a year ago, at 64.4 percent down.

In the European car tyre replacement business,last month's sales increase was wiped out. in January, sales fell by 10.5 percent. In North America, the replacement market fell by 16.5 percent.

Chinese replacement sales were a single bright spot, with the increase in January of just 5 percent.

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Press release from Michelin