On September 1, the 2014 global tire 75 "top" ranking organized by the US Rubber and plastic news weekly was released. After experiencing the "stagnation" of the previous year, the global tire market continued to decline in sales, and the operating revenue and net profit increased, but the increase decreased and ushered in an inflection point. Tire investment remains active. At present, the price of main raw materials of tires is at a historical low, and the price of tires shows a downward trend. It is predicted that the world tire sales will continue to decline in 2014 as a high probability event.

1. Bridgestone continues to win the title for five years, and other rankings have changed to some extent

By convention, the 2014 global tire 75 "top" ranking is ranked according to the sales related to tire manufacturing in 2013 (see Table 1). Bridgestone ranks first in the world with sales of US $27.39 billion for the sixth consecutive year. Bridgestone's ascent to the top is due to the contribution of two other joint-stock companies, one is 43% in sabach tire / Turkey, and the other is 19% in Nokia tire / Finland. Michelin ranked second with us $25.545 billion and Goodyear ranked third with us $17.586 billion. The fourth place is still mainland Germany, with sales of US $11.15 billion, which further shortens the gap with the top three. There are four "ten billion dollar clubs" with tire sales, including Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear and Mainland China. Last year, the 5th place was changed from the 6th place. Pirelli of Italy ranked fifth and Sumitomo of Japan ranked sixth. The seventh place is South Korea tire, with sales increasing by 10%, which is the largest increase in the top ten enterprises. The 8th place was Youke haoma, with sales falling by 11.7%, the largest decline in sales among the top ten enterprises. China's tire enterprises ranked 9th and 10th. Zhengxin international ranked 9th with us $4768.6 million, and Hangzhou Zhongce ranked 10th with us $4529.1 million in sales. Jiatong tire / Singapore increased by 39.3% from 15th to 11th, mainly due to the consolidated statements of Indonesia Jiatong. Cooper Tire Rubber of the United States, Jinhu tire of South Korea and Toyo rubber of Japan ranked 12th, 13th and 14th respectively. China's triangular tire is in the 15th place. India MRF, Apollo tire, Shandong Linglong rubber, Nokia tire and shuangqian tire holdings ranked 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th respectively. Among the top 75 enterprises, there are 29 enterprises in mainland China, 5 enterprises in Taiwan, 10 in India, 5 in the United States, 4 in Japan, 3 in South Korea, 2 in Italy, 2 in Russia, 2 in Indonesia, 2 in Turkey, and one in Thailand, Germany, Finland, Singapore, Argentina, Belarus, the Czech Republic, France, Iran, the Netherlands and Vietnam. There are five new entrants: Shandong deruibao / China, Shandong Hengyu / China, Shandong Taishan / China, Shandong Bayi / China, Magna tire group / Netherlands. Out of the top 75 are malangoni / Italy, Guangzhou Pearl River tire / China, Inoue rubber / Thailand, Maine industry / United States and general tire rubber / Pakistan.

2. Tire sales lag and industry concentration decline

In 2013, the sales volume of the world tire industry was US $187 billion, with a slight decline, which is a slight decline for two consecutive years since the new century, announcing that the world tire industry has entered an era of "stagnation". Among the "top 75" enterprises, 27 enterprises with positive sales growth, accounting for 30% of the total, of which 6 of the "top 10" enterprises have decreased sales. The total sales of Bridgestone, Michelin and Goodyear decreased by 3.5% compared with the previous year, accounting for 37.7% of the world's tires, and decreased by 1.7% on the basis of 1.3% of the previous year. The concentration of the top ten industries decreased from 64% in the previous year to 63%. Industry concentration is declining. Apollo failed to acquire guplatinum rubber, which announced that the global tire acquisition and reorganization achieved little effect last year. Several small acquisitions include Sumitomo's acquisition of Apollo's denglupu assets in South Africa / the Middle East, Titan International's acquisition of cardiant voltyre Prom factory, and shuangqian holdings's acquisition of Kunlun shares. These acquisitions may have an impact on the ranking of next year. There are 10 companies with sales growth of more than 20%, including Shandong Taishan / China, Qingdao senqilin tire / China, Shandong Hengfeng / China, Jiatong tire / Singapore, Titan International / USA, Shandong Hengyu / China, next century / South Korea, Sichuan Hyde tire / China, Xinjiang Kunlun tire / China and Metro tire / India. There are five companies with a decline rate of more than 20%, including Shandong Bayi / China, Qingdao Shuangxing tire / China, friend tire / China, cadiant / Russia and Cooper Tire Rubber / United States. There are still 17 members of the "2 billion dollar club" of the world tire, and the number of members of the "1 billion dollar club" has increased from 32 to 33. In fact, the world tire demand did not decrease last year, and the total world tire sales increased slightly. The decrease in sales is mainly due to the decline in the price of rubber and other main raw materials, which leads to the bottom of tire prices, which naturally has a negative growth on the sales of tire companies. In 2014, the decline of tire price was greater than that of the previous year, and the decline was greater than that of rubber price. It is expected that the decline of tire sales this year will be greater than that of the previous year, and the profit growth will decline.

3. China has become a beautiful scenic spot in the world ranking

China's tire enterprises are the brightest in the "top 75" ranking. With 29 enterprises on the list in mainland China and 5 enterprises in Taiwan, China occupies 34 seats in the top 75, accounting for 45.3% of the total, which makes the world tire industry look at it with new eyes. China holds two seats in the top ten. China holds five seats in the top 20. Among the 17 "2 billion dollar clubs", China accounts for 3. Among the 33 "1 billion dollar clubs", China accounts for 11. The top three growth enterprises are all Chinese enterprises, namely Shandong Taishan / China, Qingdao senqilin tire / China and Shandong Hengfeng / China. In the ranking of tire investment, China is also the country with the largest tire investment. Among the top 75, 18 foreign-funded enterprises have set up wholly-owned / joint ventures in China, and the Chinese business has made a great contribution to the growth of their tire sales revenue. A total of 48 of the top 75 produce tires in China, of which all the top 10 have tire factories in China. China has become a real world tire production country and world tire manufacturing center.

4. Economic benefits usher in an inflection point

In 2013, the operating revenue and profit of the world's top 75 tires increased, mostly reaching a record high, but the growth rate has a downward trend. Michelin's operating profit decreased by 20% to US $2622 million, and its net sales rate decreased by 5.6% from 11.3%. Bridgestone's operating profit increased by 53.9% to US $4.088 billion, and its net profit increased by 17.7% to US $2.068 billion. Goodyear's operating profit increased by 26.6% and its net profit margin increased by 196.7%. Trelleborg group of Sweden said that 2013 was "the most profitable year so far". Sales and profits increased, and the operating profit margin increased by 11.6%, which was the highest in history. None of the 20 large tire enterprises that reported profits suffered losses, and the average pre tax operating income rate increased from 10.7% in the previous year to 12.5%. The average net profit margin was 5%, equivalent to that of the previous year. Nokia tire ranks first with 25.3% pre tax operating income rate, and Zhengxin tire ranks first with 14.3% net profit rate. The net profit margins of Korean tires, Nokia tires and Zhengxin international all maintained double-digit growth, while there were seven companies with double-digit growth in the previous year. The net profit is comparable to the number of enterprises that increased and decreased in the previous year. Goodyear had the largest increase in net profit over the previous year, reaching 196.7%, while Jiatong tire had the largest decrease, reaching 89.4%. From the performance of tire companies in the first half of 2014, the profit in 2014 ushered in an inflection point with an obvious downward trend. Nokia tire has therefore lowered its previous forecast of 2014 sales and profits. It is predicted that the profitability of the world tire industry will enter the "inflection point" of decline in 2014.

5. Active investment in the world tire industry

In recent years, the investment in the world tire industry has been very strong. In 2013, the total investment in the tire industry was US $8.6 billion, an increase of at least US $600 million over the previous year. Korean tires, the next century and Apollo invested more than $1 billion. The Korean tire company invested US $1.3 billion to establish light truck and truck tire factories in the United States and tire research centers in South Korea. The next century tire company invested US $1.1 billion to build a tire factory in slofak, Apollo invested US $1 billion to build a new tire factory in the Middle East, and upgraded the Indonesian factory at the same time. By investment region, Asia ranks first, with about US $2.77 billion. Second in Europe, about US $2.4 billion. Third in North America, about $2 billion. Tire investment in North America became active after several years of silence. South Korea tire, Jiatong tire, Jinhu tire and Trelleborg all plan to establish new tire factories in North America, and Goodyear also plans to establish new tire factories in the United States. Last year, the global tire industry announced 11 new tire factories. It is expected that 46 million passenger tires and 4-5 million commercial tires will be added from 2015 to 2018. Last year, a total of 12 new tire projects were put into operation, with an annual output of 50 million passenger / light truck tires and 5 million truck / engineering tires. A total of six tire factories announced the closure of the factory, which is expected to reduce the annual output of 10 million passenger / light truck tires and 4 million load capacity by the end of 2015. According to the ranking of capital expenditure in 2013 financial budget, Michelin and Bridgestone ranked first and second, with us $2.63 billion and US $2.62 billion respectively. Goodyear and Mainland China ranked third and fourth with us $1.17 billion and US $1.06 billion respectively. Ranked by capital expenditure / sales revenue rate, the next century tire ranks first with 17.9%, followed by Jiatong tire with 15.2% and Zhengxin tire with 10.6% respectively. Tire investment accounted for an average of 8% of sales, compared with 7.7% in 2012. In terms of R & D expenses, Bridgestone and Michelin ranked first and second, with us $912 million and US $853 million respectively. Ranked by R & D expenses / sales, Michelin and Pirelli rank first with 3.2%, followed by next century, Jinhu and Youke haoma with 2.8%. The average research and development expenses / sales of the whole tire industry was 2.4%, an increase of 0.7% over the previous year. These show that the world tire companies pay more attention to scientific research and development than before, which is worthy of reference and thinking for China's tire industry.

Reprinted from: Shandong rubber network