China's tire "going to sea" : stable growth and risk prevention are not wrong

On April 18, the General Administration of Customs released tire export data for March 2023 and the first quarter. According to statistics, in March this year, China's rubber tires (including but not limited to automobile tires) exports totaled 760,000 tons, an increase of 190,000 tons from the previous month, a year-on-year increase of 18.2%; The export value was 13.26 billion yuan, an increase of 26.8%, and the average export price continued to rise year-on-year. From January to March, the cumulative export volume of China's rubber tires was 1.98 million tons, an increase of 11.1%. The export value was 34.754 billion yuan, up by 19.9%.

Go all out to grab the start, China's auto tire exports are running out of "acceleration."

It is understood that in recent years, China's tire industry to achieve rapid growth, since 2006 has been the world's largest tire producer and rubber consumer, tire production accounted for about a quarter of the world's total output. For the domestic tire industry, the overseas market is an important growth point, and nearly half of China's tire production is sold to overseas markets every year.

"Occupying the passenger car tire market with cost-effective products is a definite growth space for Chinese tire companies; At the same time, the overseas layout will become the watershed of competition in China's tire industry, and it is also the most important source of profit for related enterprises. Only by carrying out international layout can we stand out." Zhang Yansheng, chief analyst of the chemical industry, pointed out in an industry special report.

As an important part of the industry chain, tires benefit from the steady growth of vehicle sales, and the current global market size is close to one trillion yuan. China's tire products have always had a cost-effective advantage, in order to expand the market, a number of Chinese tire companies will be the production line layout to overseas markets, and gradually formed a more perfect production, sales, transportation integration network.

Automotive industry analyst Li Hengguang said that the expansion of overseas bases and brand internationalization are the main path for the growth of the domestic tire industry in the next few years. In his view, the tire has become the best solution for the current enterprise to face the bottleneck of development, which is not only because the overseas factory or close to the consumer market, or conducive to control production costs, or can effectively avoid trade barriers, but also because the face of domestic competition pressure increases, enterprises need to make adjustments.

At this stage, the global tire market has formed a three-pronged pattern of Asia Pacific, North America and Europe. Among them, the Asia-Pacific market dominates, and the trend of capacity transfer to this region will continue to strengthen in the future. As an important country in the Asia-Pacific region, China's tire industry continues to grow bigger and stronger. However, with the continuous development of the economy, the increase of human resource costs, the reduction of national and local preferential policies, the saturation degree of supply and demand in the domestic tire market is becoming higher and higher, and even a more serious overcapacity situation has appeared, and the trade risks faced have increased. Therefore, accelerating overseas investment has become an important way for Chinese tire companies to break through the dilemma, and it is also the only way for them to become the world's first-class tire companies.

On March 31, the 2022 annual performance announcement released by Xingda International Holdings Co., Ltd. showed that the demand for its radial tire cord for passenger cars in overseas markets maintained a good momentum, with sales increasing by 5.1% year-on-year to 364,500 tons. It is reported that in 2022, due to the repeated impact of the epidemic, the domestic market demand for radial tire cord fell, but the company's overseas market demand maintained stable growth, which played a compensating and supporting role in the overall business, and due to the increase in the average selling price of products, thereby increasing corporate earnings.

"Up to now, the company's KAPSEN, HABILEAD, ROADBOSS, DURUN four brands sell well in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and other more than 130 countries and regions, we also set up exclusive brand agents in more than 60 countries and regions." Export sales accounted for 65% of the production capacity of semi-steel radial tires and 50% of the production capacity of all-steel radial tires, and high-performance and high-quality products accounted for more than 40%." Yan Haiming, deputy general manager of Shandong Huasheng Rubber Group (hereinafter referred to as "Huasheng Group"), told China Automotive News that exports are an important business growth point. According to reports, Huasheng Group has always attached importance to the development and layout of the international market, actively participated in professional exhibitions at home and abroad, regularly visited customers to research the market, obtained valuable information from the terminal market, to guide the company to develop differentiated products to adapt to different countries and regions, and achieved fruitful marketing results. At present, Huasheng Group has ranked among the top 50 international global tire enterprises, and its exports have entered the list of top 100 export enterprises in Shandong Province for many years.

"In the first quarter of this year, we achieved sales of 567,989 items, hitting a new high in the first quarter of the past five years, and earned foreign exchange of 71.962 million US dollars. The company's main export markets include Pakistan, Canada, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Chile, Cameroon, etc., and the market share in Pakistan, Cameroon, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates is the first." The relevant person in charge of Chaoyang Langma Tire Co., Ltd. told reporters that due to the implementation of technological innovation, the gap between the manufacturing and equipment capacity of the domestic tire industry and the world's advanced level has been narrowing; Intelligent manufacturing promotes continuous improvement of production efficiency; The wide application of new technologies and new materials has promoted the expansion of product cost-effective advantages, especially some enterprises with strength and foresight actively promote the expansion of domestic advantageous production capacity to overseas, making the international competitiveness of China's tire industry continue to increase.

According to the financial report of Pulin Chengshan 2022, the operating income of its domestic and international dealer channels last year was 1.88 billion yuan and 5.653 billion yuan, respectively, accounting for 23.1% and 69.3% of the total revenue respectively. Che Hongzhi, chairman of Pulin Chengshan, said that since its listing in 2018, the company has firmly practiced its international development strategy, among which the construction of smart factories and overseas production capacity layout have laid a solid foundation for the future development of the company.

According to the financial report of SenQilin (29.350, 0.09, 0.31%) in 2022, the company achieved operating income of 6.292 billion yuan, an increase of 21.53%, and the net profit of 801 million yuan to the mother, an increase of 6.30%; From 2020 to 2022, the proportion of products exported is more than 86%, North America is the main target market for the company's tire export, in addition to North America, the company also has a sales layout in Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, Africa and other places.