Tyre prices stable, local product demand rising in SE Asia – GfK survey
Market research firm GfK Asia has released a report on the performance of four emerging Southeast Asian tyre markets in the first quarter of 2012; the company found that demand for replacement tyres in the countries investigated – Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand – increased 14 per cent between January and March in comparison with the October to December 2011 quarter. According to GfK’s retail tracking of replacement passenger car tyres across a number of cities within the four countries, some 2,557,600 tyres were replaced in the first three months of the year.
This growth, says GfK, was mainly driven by higher demand in Bangkok and Malaysia’s Klang Valley, which registered respective incremental sales volume of 38 and 16 per cent compared to the closing quarter of 2011. “While the healthy sales performance of replacement car tyres in Malaysia was driven by seasonal demand brought about by the festive Chinese New Year period in January, the sudden sales spike in Thailand was an exceptional occurrence that was a result of the flooding disaster which took place at the end of third quarter last year,” highlighted Jasmine Lim, account director at GfK Asia. “As a result, replacement car tyre sales fell by 26 per cent in quarter four last year, but pent up demand drove sales up considerably in the following quarter.”
Judging by all the brands present across all four markets, GfK says it is apparent that the dominance of Japanese tyre brands is being diluted in this region. Comparing first quarter results of this year versus the last, major Japanese tyre makers’ market declined by nearly three per cent. Nevertheless, they still hold about 40 percent of the total across all four countries. On the other hand, the performance of local and international brands is on the rise. “Prudent consumers will tend to choose local car tyre brands due to their lower cost, a factor that is especially crucial during the economic recovery phase,” said Lim. “With the prediction that consumers will continue to exercise caution in their spending in the upcoming months, we anticipate that tyre brands which are best able to offer top value for consumers’ bucks to be the ones who will flourish and grow in 2012.”
The GfK report also showed that average prices of replacement car tyres have remained relatively stable in the last year, increasing by only US$2 per tyre across the four markets.
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