Rubber & tire industry in numbers

PROJECTS / RESTRUCTURING

Bridgestone announced an investment of $85m to expand capacity and capability at its Bridgestone Pune and Indore plants in India to “reinforce the company’s premium-mass strategy.”

Sumitomo Rubber Industries said it is liquidating its SRUSA manufacturing operation, which employs 1,555 people and generated sales of around $456m in 2023 from the 3,150t/m unit. Business profit from the Tonowanda, New York operation shrank to just $21k last year, from $3.6m in 2022 and $8.5m in 2021. Due to the closure, SRI revised down its forecast for group operating profit in 2024, to Yen5,000m from Yen56,000m.

In France, Michelin said it is closing its car & light truck (LT) tire plant in Cholet and metal reinforcement products unit in Vannes by early 2026, impacting 1,254 employees and resulting €330m in non-recurring charges. At Cholet, which employs 955 people and mainly manufactures 17-inch and smaller LT tires, production fell from around 4.375m units in 2019 to around 2.625m in 2024.

Sailun Group is investing €102m to establish a tire industry cluster in Cambodia within 12 months: encompassing the production of rubber materials, silica, carbon black, rubber additives, recycled waste rubber and steel cord. Sailun is currently expanding its tire plant in Cambodia’s Svay Rieng province to increase car tire production capacity by 12m units to 21m units/yr - in addition to 1.65m/yr TBRs.

BUSINESS

Pirelli reported earnings (adjusted EBIT) up 4.3% year-on-year to €815.9m on sales 0.5% higher at €5,184.5m for the first nine months of 2024. Q3/24 earnings increased 4.4% year-on-year to €276.6m, while sales edged up 0.8% year-on-year to €1,737m. 

Sumitomo Rubber Industries has posted a 2.8% year-on-year increase in sales to Yen874,9bn for Q1-Q3/24, but operating profit 72.3% lower at Yen11.5bn. Business profit increased 46.6% year-on-year to Yen61.5bn. Q3/24 sales revenues fell 1.0% year-on-year to Yen287.9bn, while business profit declined 23.0% to Yen19.2bn. SRI posted an operating loss of Yen30.5bn for Q3. 

For Q3/24, Goodyear posted sales down 6.1% year-on-year at $4.8bn but segment operating income up 3.3% to $347m. Over Q1-3, group SOI increased 60% year-on-year to $933m. Nine-month sales declined 6.8% year-on-year to $14bn.

Hankook Tire reported an 18.6% year-on-year increase in Q3/24 operating profit to KRW470bn, on sales 4.1% higher at KRW2,400bn.

Cabot Corp.’s reinforcement materials division posted a 9% year-on-year increase in earnings to $603m on sales up 1.8% to $2.6bn for the group’s fiscal year 2024, ended 30 Sept.

Wacker’s silicones division posted Q3/24 earnings of €109m, more than double the €51 million in Q3/23, and 20% higher than the preceding quarter. Sales at the division increased by 8% year-on-year to €727m.

For the quarter ended 30 Sept, Toyoda Gosei saw operating profit decline by 14.3% year-on-year to Yen29bn (€175m) on 1.3% lower sales of Yen516bn.

Zeon Corp.’s elastomers business has reported a 90% year-on-year increase in earnings, to Yen2.2bn, on fiscal Q2 sales of Yen60.4b (€365m) - 15% higher than in the same period of last year. 

TRADE

For the first three quarters of 2024, Germany’s tire & rubber manufacturing sector saw sales decline 5.3% year-on-year, while volume sales and production decreased by about 6%, Frankfurt-based industry association the WDK reported

SHARE PRICES

Leading manufacturers’ share-price trends

MATERIALS markets

Natural rubber

ANRPC reported a 3.2% year-on-year  increase in global natural rubber (NR) production over Q1-Q3/24 to 9.9 million tons. Meanwhile, global NR demand increased by 1.4% to 11.3m tons. 

JPX: NR futures continued a downtrend for a second week in a row across all major Far East exchanges. During the trading week ended 1 Nov, Japan’s OSE saw March-2025 contracts decline 6.3% week-on-week in active trading. In China, SHFE and INE exchanges reported 1.7% and 1.6% declines respectively, while Singapore, SICOM's active January-2025 contract closed marginally lower.

Selected NR futures price trends on major trading exchanges

(ERJ calculation for Jan ‘25 futures)