Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is planning “rationalization and workforce reorganization” actions that would result in a 5 per cent reduction in salaried staff globally, or about 500 positions. According to executives, the move has been prompted by the “challenging industry environment and cost pressure driven by inflation.” However it is also attributed to weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter results:
On 19 January, the European Commission extended anti-dumping duties on aluminium road wheels from China for a further five years. The extension follows an expiry review investigation, which showed that these wheels continue to be dumped on the EU market and that industry within the European Union would suffer significant harm if the measures were allowed to lapse.
The European Commission has provisionally recalculated anti-Chinese-produced truck tyre import tariffs to between €21.12 and €61.76 per tyre, equating to a reduction of between 0 and 51 per cent, depending on the manufacturer. Consultation on the provisional recalculation is now open until 23 January, before the final determination will be made on 25 January 2023.
From next year, Qingdao Sentury Tire will manufacture passenger car tyres under the Nokian brand name for the Central European market. Under a recently-signed contract manufacturing agreement between Nokian Tyres plc and Qingdao Sentury Tire Co., Ltd., production of a selected range of Nokian-designed and -tested tyres will commence in the first half of 2023, with products reaching the market in the second half of the year.
At the end of the second quarter ended 30 September 2022, Apollo Tyres Ltd reported double-digit increases in sales and profitability that point to even great performance in the first-half of the company’s current financial year. And the data shows that company’s European operations are at the forefront of leading the company’s strong performance.
Passenger car and light truck (PCLT) tyre production trends in Western Europe have been scaling down over the long-term. The move to larger production facilities in the comparatively low-cost labour markets in Eastern Europe, or greater reliance on imports from Asia, has seen a steady stream of plant closures and conversions to speciality, short-run production capacity – on in the case of Cooper Tire’s UK plant, for example, one followed by the other – in the region. A new assessment of the most recent three-year period by tyre industry analyst Astutus Research suggests that the overall picture has been of a decline similar to the period following the 2008 financial crisis, which was itself a catalyst for this trend. Yet digging a little deeper into the figures shows several dynamics at play in European PCLT tyre production, including supply chain disruption and spiralling energy costs. For comprehensive analysis of global tyre market trends, a series of reports by Astutus Research are available to buy now in the Tyrepress Reports Shop – click here for more details.
During Apollo Tyres’s recent celebration of 25 years of Traxion agricultural tyre technology, Europe president Benoit Rivallant set an ambitious target of growing the company’s off-highway tyre (OHT) revenue by 50 per cent. In Europe, 16 per cent of total revenue originates from the off-highway tyre sector. This compares with 63 per cent from passenger car tyres, 12 per cent from truck and bus tyres, 8 per cent from spare tyres, 1 per cent from bicycle tyres and 1 per cent from other products. In other words, the 16 per cent originating from off-highway tyre sales is a strategically important figure, 92 per cent of which comes from the agricultural sub-segment. Tyres & Accessories took time out with the company’s European head in order to find out more about how executives plan to achieve such ambitious targets in the context of a broadly challenging tyre market environment.
June and July saw a spate of factory investment and opening announcements. First there’s the news that Linglong manufactured its first tyre at its brand-new Serbia tyre production plant at the end of June. Of course, this project has been underway for some time, but the fact that it got going just before the end of the first half of 2022 is noteworthy for two reasons. Firstly, notwithstanding the inhibiting effect of general market headwinds associated with pandemic fall-out and war in Ukraine, the project is basically on-schedule. And secondly, it demonstrates that no enthusiasm for Western and specifically European tyre production has been lost since the nullification of European import tariffs against Chinese-produced truck tyres roughly a month ago.
During the recent IAA 2022 truck event in Germany, Chinese tyremaker Prinx Chengshan released its TH155 truck tyre pattern. The new trailer hybrid, OE oriented tyre is described as having “outstanding overall performance”, something that is attested by its “A” and “B” ratings for wet grip and fuel consumption on the European tyre label (in 385/65 R22.5). The tyre will be marketed under the Austone ATH155 and Fortune FTH155 brand names.
ZC Rubber has named Martin Wells as the company’s new European managing director and president of ZC Technical Center and Global OE. Meanwhile, Jörn Tietjens has been appointed as senior key account manager/senior automotive engineer of the European ZC Technical Center.
With TPMS legislation soon to include commercial vehicles, Hamaton is offering a commercial vehicle upgrade for ATEQ VT56 users. ATEQ VT56 users across Europe can purchase the upgrade, to enable them to read and diagnose TPM systems on all commercial vehicles.
Goodyear
S. Hermann & F. Richter; Pixabay
Maxam Tire International
Apollo Tyres
Anthony/Tyre Industry Publications Ltd.
Online investor Q&A
Prinx Chengshan
Point S
ZC Rubber
Hamaton/ATEQ