Global and Chinese tire market status and future development trend

Tires are ground rolling circular elastic rubber products assembled on various vehicles or machinery. Usually installed on the metal rim, it can support the body, cushion the external impact, achieve contact with the road surface and ensure the driving performance of the vehicle.

Tires are often used under complex and harsh conditions, and they bear a variety of deformation, load and high and low temperature effects when driving, so they must have high bearing performance, traction performance and buffer performance. At the same time, it also requires high wear resistance and flexural resistance, as well as low rolling resistance and heat generation.

Analysis of the current situation of tire industry

The development of the world tire industry has experienced more than 160 years, and the Chinese tire industry has a history of more than 80 years since the first tire came out in 1935, but the rapid development of the domestic tire industry is from the decades after the reform and opening up, after this period of rapid growth, the domestic tire industry has occupied a large share in the world. The gap between the technical level and product quality and the advanced level of foreign countries is getting smaller and smaller, and the international status is constantly improving.

From the perspective of the development history of China's tire industry, China's tire industry has experienced four stages, which are the initial stage, the introduction period, the rapid development period and the overseas layout period. Early stage of development: 1934-1977, China's first car tire successfully developed; Tire production base built; Radial tires entered small batch production. Technology introduction period: 1978-1992, the reform and opening up promoted the introduction of tire equipment and technology, and the output of tires increased. Rapid development period: 1992-2010, tire companies have emerged, the industry appeared a hundred schools of thought; At the same time, foreign manufacturers began to set up factories in China. Overseas layout period: Since 2010, in order to solve the problem of domestic tire overcapacity, tire companies began to optimize their production capacity; Actively layout overseas markets.

In terms of enterprise capability in China, a small number of tire enterprises in our country are ranked in the second echelon, most of them are ranked in the third echelon and the fourth echelon, although our country is in the forefront of the world in terms of output, but the international competitiveness of tire enterprises needs to continue to improve. Specifically, the first echelon of global tire industry enterprises are Michelin, Bridgestone, Goodyear, Continental; The second tier includes Sumitomo Rubber, Pirelli, Hankook, Zhongce Rubber; The third echelon includes Giti tires, Linglong tires, racing tires and so on.

In 2021, the tire industry faces a variety of situations:

Production costs continue to rise: the main raw materials of tires, natural rubber, synthetic rubber, carbon black, steel cord prices have increased in different amplitude. At the same time, affected by domestic energy consumption dual control, rising coal prices and other factors, the production costs of tire industry companies continue to rise, and the cost pressure is difficult to digest in the short term, resulting in a decline in profits of most tire companies.

Rising sea freight prices: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the global maritime market had been depressed for many years, and the maritime market was highly concentrated and prices were stabilizing. Since the spread of the novel coronavirus epidemic, the global maritime market has gradually seen supply imbalances, and prices have continued to rise, which has generally adversely affected export enterprises. In 2021, tire exports have experienced adverse domestic and foreign shipping factors such as container shortage, Los Angeles port congestion, Suez Canal congestion, and the epidemic situation in some Chinese ports, and sea freight has risen sharply. At the same time, the container is affected by factors such as the extension of the shipping schedule, and can not return to the port on time, resulting in some months of the company facing the situation of "a box is difficult to obtain", which has a greater impact on the export of enterprises.

Domestic tire enterprises accelerated reshuffle: Since 2021, in the face of pressure such as raw material prices and rising sea freight prices, companies in the tire industry have frequently announced price adjustments, and prices have risen many times. Although tire prices continue to adjust, but according to the industry association statistics show that the overall profit of the tire industry is still down year-on-year, which to a certain extent intensified the reshuffle speed of domestic tire enterprises. In 2021, a number of small and medium-sized tire companies went bankrupt, while some domestic tire companies chose to continue to expand production capacity, and actively adjust the tire product structure, and actively develop in the green direction of high quality and low energy consumption.

Tire development trend Tires

[Collectivization and globalization] The scale effect of tire enterprises is obvious, so the current development trend of collectivization and globalization of large tire enterprises is more obvious. Global tire companies have strong financial strength, research and development capabilities and brand advantages, sales profits and the ability to cope with the economic crisis is generally stronger than the general small and medium-sized tire companies, and therefore can maintain competitiveness in the international market for a long time.

[R&D investment continues to increase] With the rapid development of automotive technology, consumer demand and environmental requirements continue to improve, the market requirements for tire performance are increasing, the world's large tire companies are constantly increasing research and development investment, and strive to improve their product performance and technical content. At present, safe, energy-saving and environmentally friendly green tires have become the mainstream development trend. With the emergence of new products and new technologies in the tire industry, the application and promotion of research and development results have improved the production efficiency and product quality of the tire industry. Tire bearing performance, high-speed performance, ride comfort performance, safety performance and so on continue to improve.

[Green environmental protection requirements] The green trend of the tire industry will be more obvious. In recent years, the tightening of industrial policy and the upgrading of consumer demand have put forward higher requirements for the green environmental performance of the tire industry, green tires have become one of the mainstream trends in the development of tires, in the field of reducing rolling resistance, environmental protection materials research and development and application will be the main technical direction of tire manufacturers in the future. Since automobile enterprises are subject to mandatory policies such as national fuel consumption limits and exhaust emission control, and in the process of car driving, tire energy consumption is second only to the engine in vehicle energy consumption, therefore, the national level attaches great importance to the development of green tires, and relevant industrial policies have been introduced. At the same time, coupled with the increasing requirements of consumers for vehicle performance, high-performance, energy-saving and environmentally friendly tire products have become an important part of the enterprise supporting system.

The "new four modernizations" of automobiles, that is, electrification, networking, intelligence and sharing, put forward new requirements for the tire industry, intelligence is the trend of automotive technology development, and the intelligence of tires is bound to be among them. For example, the tire pressure, temperature, friction, vibration and other conditions can be measured or estimated by sensors installed inside the tire or other sensors in the car itself; Or according to the tire state information obtained by measurement or estimation, the safety state of the tire and the safety performance of the car can be made intelligent judgment, and the abnormal state of the tire can be warned and actively controlled. In addition, intelligent tires can also provide the necessary tire status information for the automobile active control system, automobile assistance and intelligent driving system, improve the intelligence of the automobile control system, so as to improve the safety, environmental protection, economy and comfort of the automobile.

Global tire scale analysis

According to statistics and forecast: in 2021, the global tire market size reached 149.129 billion US dollars, and is expected to reach 192.582 billion US dollars in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.45%.

At the regional level, the Chinese market has changed rapidly in the past few years, the market size in 2021 is 38.031 billion US dollars, accounting for about 25.50% of the world, and is expected to reach 51.977 billion US dollars in 2028, when the global share will reach 26.99%.

In terms of consumption, Europe is currently the world's largest consumer market, with a market share of 31.26% in 2021, followed by China and the Americas, with 25.5% and 18.146%, respectively. Southeast Asia is expected to see the fastest growth in the coming years, with a CAGR of approximately 4.73% during the 2022-2028 period.

From the perspective of product type and technology, tires mainly include automobile tires, bicycle tires, motorcycle /ATV tires, engineering tires, agricultural tires, aviation tires and racing tires; Automotive tires play an important role, and the revenue share in 2021 will reach 83.09%.

At present, the world's major manufacturers include Michelin, Bridgestone, GoodYear, Continental and Sumitomo, and the share of major manufacturers in 2021 is more than 93%. It is expected that the industry competition will be more intense in the next few years, especially in the Chinese market.