ERJ: Rubber & tire industry in numbers

Review of the key figures and data to emerge this week from leading players in the tire & industry:

Projects & investment

Capital spending among Europe’s largest tire manufacturers is on a recovery track, having declined from over 8% in 2016-18 and 7.5% in 2019 to around 6.4% in 2022. (See chart above).

Hankook Tire has awarded Hyundai Movex an '$82m' contract to supply logistics automation for its tire manufacturing plant in Clarksville, Tennessee.  The project will deliver smart logistics capabilities as part of Hankook’s ongoing €1.6-billion expansion project at the US site.

Sustainability

The market for ‘green’ tires market is set to almost triple in value over the next 10 years to reach $86 billion by 2033, according to Black Donuts, in a release highlighting its R&D priorities in the sustainability arena.

Tire market

HSBC Global Research: Michelin, Continental Tires and Pirelli are on track to see “unprecedented” price/mix increases of 27%, 35% and 41% respectively between 2020 and 2023, said the study titled ‘EU tyre makers: defying pricing pressure’.

TIPI (tire input price index) declined 21% as of 4 Dec 2023 vs the 2022 average and 31% from its peak level in June 2022. Given a delay of around six months between spot prices and their impact on P&L – raw material deflation started to benefit companies’ P&L in H2/23. (See chart above)

Global Tire Report 2023: Group Michelin is the world’s largest tire maker with 2022 tire-related revenue of $28.3bn, well ahead of no 2 Bridgestone’s estimated $26.6bn, Goodyear’s $17.9bn – with a full year of revenue from the Cooper Tire & Rubber assets acquired in mid-2021 now incorporated – and Continental Tires’ $12.4bn.

Electric vehicles

ACEA report: By the end of 2022, China accounted for 57% of the global share of sales, 60% of the global electric vehicle fleet, and 75% of global battery production capacity.

ACEA report: Production capacity for battery cells is estimated to reach 1.1 TWh by 2030, with European, Korean and Chinese battery manufacturers taking 44%, 27.5% and 26.8% of the market share respectively.

Share prices

Development of leading rubber processors’ shares in 2023

Materials prices

Synthetic rubber

Synthetic rubber pricing* depicted a mixed picture over the trading week ended 8 Dec, the latest data compiled by ChemAnalyst shows. (See table above)

Natural rubber

Selected NR futures price trends on major trading exchanges

LAST WEEK’S NUMBERS