Global Tire Report - A solid platform

London – For most major manufacturers in the global tire industry, this year was about consolidating and, where possible, building on strong growth in sales and earnings achieved in 2022.

As a marker for the general stability among global tire makers in 2022, the top 11 companies retained their prior-year positions in the global tire rankings – amid a fairly dynamic market scenario.

Group Michelin remained the world’s largest tire maker with tire-related revenue of $28.3 billion, well ahead of no 2 Bridgestone’s estimated tire-centric total of $26.6 billion.

Goodyear – with a full year of revenue from the Cooper Tire & Rubber assets acquired in mid 2021 now incorporated – and Continental AG were the next largest players, with tire revenues of $17.9 billion and $12.4 billion respectively.

There were no position-changes either in the second half of the top 10 rankings: Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Pirelli, Hankook and Yokohama Rubber Co., Zhongce Rubber and Maxxis respectively holding onto the next six slots.

The first change in the rankings was seen at no 12 position, with China’s Sailun Group moving up from 14th place – a strong performance in North America helping the Chinese tire maker to grow annual sales by 16.7% year-on-year in fiscal 2022 to $3.29 billion.

By contrast, other Chinese-based tire makers saw sales decline, reflecting a sluggish domestic market and the increasing imposition of trade barriers in their key export markets.

Overall, though, the majority of companies tracked for this year’s report reported double-digit sales growth in fiscal 2022 over 2021 as the world’s major market economies continued to rebound from the impact of Covid over the previous two years.

The highest achievers in terms of sales growth were Michelin and Kumho Tire: topping the growth charts with year-on-year revenue increases of 39.7% and 36.8% respectively.

Read the full report in the November/December issue of European Rubber Journal magazine – online version also available in the Featured Content section under the Focus tab on the ERJ website homepage.