Michelin, Bridgestone, Goodyear top global tire makers

AKRON — Group Michelin topped the 37th annual Tire Business Global Tire Report ranking of worldwide tire sales for a third year in a row with an estimated global tire-manufacturing revenue of $26.3 billion.

The Top 5 tire manufacturers did not change in 2021 with Bridgestone Corp. close behind Michelin, followed by Goodyear, Continental A.G. and Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd.

Collectively, the Top 10 tire companies accounted for $107 billion in world tire industry last year, based on Tire Business' data, or roughly 61% of the total.

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For the annual Top 75 ranking, Tire Business rates tire makers on their revenue from the sale of tires they have manufactured in order to achieve a more equitable "apples-to-apples" comparison.

Items such as third-party sales of raw materials — steel cord, synthetic rubber or carbon black for example — as well as estimates for non-tire items such as auto-service-related revenue at company-owned retail stores on non-tire rubber and/or plastics goods, are excluded.

Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear and Continental, for example, report hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in revenue from their respective captive retail networks, which generate measurable shares of their revenue from automotive-service-related activities and sales of tire brands other than their own.

Other takeaways from the report:

• After sales revenue by the Top 75 global tire makers in 2020 dropped by more than 8% from 2019, sales by those same companies rebounded last year to the tune of nearly 13% more than 2020 and more than 6% more than the total from 2019.
• The average operating income/sales revenue margin among 25 leading tire makers last year was 9.4%, up nearly two points versus fiscal 2020 and back nearly on par with 2019.
• Two of the 25 companies tracked for this report reported operating losses last year — Kumho Tire Co. Inc. and Nankang Rubber — but that was more than offset by all the others that reported improved income for the year

Thirty of the companies in the Top 75 are from China, including three among the top 20 — Zhongce Rubber Group Co. Ltd. (No. 8), Linglong Group Co. Ltd. (No. 13) and Sailun Group Co. Ltd. (No. 14).

Other countries represented in the ranking are: India (seven companies); the U.S. (five); Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (four each); Italy and Turkey (three each); Iran, Russia and Vietnam (two each); and one each based in Argentina, Belarus, England, Finland, France, Germany, Pakistan, Singapore and Thailand.

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Looking ahead to the 2023 Global Tire Ranking, there is no significant merger/acquisition activity among the leading tire makers in 2021 that will affect the rankings.

Yokohama Rubber's pending acquisition of Trelleborg Wheel Systems, however, will boost YRC's revenue by $1 billion or more once it's fully integrated. The deal is expected to be finalized before year-end, so Yokohama won't see the full impact of that acquisition until fiscal 2023.

Goodyear's position will be strengthened in next year's rankings, based on a full year of consolidation of Cooper Tire's business versus the seven months reported in 2021.