UPDATE: Read the new 2024 Top 75 ranking
With a few notable exceptions, major players in the global tire industry enjoyed growth in sales and earnings in fiscal 2022.
After all was said and done, the top of the ranking is very familiar: the top 11 companies hold the same position as the year before. The first change comes at No. 12, occupied this year by China's Sailun Group Co. Ltd., based on fiscal 2022 revenue of $3.29 billion.
Group Michelin retained the No. 1 ranking with tire-related revenue of $28.3 billion, comfortably ahead of No. 2 Bridgestone's estimated tire-centric total of $26.6 billion.
Goodyear — with a full year of revenue from the Cooper Tire & Rubber assets acquired in early 2021 now incorporated — and Continental A.G. are ensconced comfortably at Nos. 3 and 4, with revenue of $17.9 billion and $12.4 billion, respectively.
Goodyear's acquisition of Cooper has been central to the company's growth of nearly 43% since 2019, the last full year before the COVID-19 pandemic took root.
The vast majority (22) of the 27 companies tracked by Tire Business for this report enjoyed double-digit growth in fiscal 2022 over 2021 as the world's major market economies continued to rebound from the depths of the COVID-19-induced economic malaise of 2020 and the recovery year of 2021.
Michelin and Kumho Tire Co. Inc. topped the growth charts with revenue improvements of 39.7% and 36.8%, respectively. Only the Taiwanese companies Cheng Shin Rubber Industries Ltd. and Nankang Rubber Tire Corp. reported lower sales last year versus 2021.