Multinational giants of car tires bet on the Chinese market

Near the end of the year, the auto market began to habitually rebound, and many models even appeared in queues and were difficult to obtain. In the face of the Chinese market, which has continued to release its purchasing power, car tire giants have quietly cast a heavy bet. Recently, the Michelin Group invested 1.457 billion U.S. dollars to invest in a new plant in Shenyang. The investment amount was more than three times the previous investment. A few days later, Hankook's third factory in China was officially settled in Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area. The project has a total investment of 950 million U.S. dollars, and is expected to produce 11.5 million tires annually after completion, which will comprehensively increase the total global production capacity of Hankook Tire. Industry analysts pointed out that the “Tire Industry Policy” issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology more than a month ago has raised the threshold for entry into the tire industry and will accelerate the reshuffling of the domestic tire industry.

Multinational tire giants have expanded a week ago, Michelin announced investment of 1.457 billion US dollars in Shenyang to invest in new factories. Although according to an insider of the company, this operation is quite “low-key”, but it can be seen that the intention of Michelin’s expansion in China is obvious. Earlier, Michelin invested a total of approximately 450 million U.S. dollars in China, and this new plant in Shenyang is more than three times the previous investment. As China has become a very important strategic market for the Michelin Group in recent years, the renovation and expansion of the new plant in Shenyang are, to a large extent, targeted at the domestic market for high-performance tires. The new Shenyang plant project mainly produces tires for passenger cars, truck tires and retreaded tires, especially high performance tires and low rolling resistance green tires. When the project is fully completed, the new plant will have an annual production capacity of 10 million car tires, 1.8 million passenger car tires and nearly 300,000 retreaded tires. Currently, nearly 600 stores and more than 5,200 retailers nationwide support its sales network.

After a few years ago, Hankook Tire, one of the top tire manufacturers in the domestic market, was unabashed. After a few days, it signed an investment agreement with the Chongqing Municipal Government to establish the third Hankook Tire Plant in Liangjiang New Area, and it is also the company’s sixth largest company in the world. The factory, which has a total investment of 950 million U.S. dollars, is expected to produce 11.5 million tires a year after it is completed. Sales of 1 billion U.S. dollars will increase its total global production capacity. According to an insider from Hankook, the project is expected to officially start in early 2011 and be completed and put into operation by the end of 2015. After the completion of the new plant, it will mainly produce passenger car tires and truck and bus tires, with an annual production capacity of 11.5 million pieces. It is estimated that the annual sales will reach US$1 billion after the start of production. The construction of the third plant in China aims to comprehensively increase the global total of Hankook Tire. Capacity. According to the latest data released by Hankook, the company's ultra-high performance tires have a 30% annual growth in sales in the global market, among which, the ultra-high performance supporting tire production in the Chinese market increased by 51% over the same period of last year.

In the third quarter 2010 financial report released by Goodyear Tire Company, the company’s tire sales in the third quarter reached 47.7 million, up 6% year-on-year, reaching the highest level since the third quarter of 2008. Among them, sales of matching tires increased by 15%, and replacement tire sales increased by 3%. The reporter learned that a $500 million Dalian plant investment project at Goodyear will be completed by the end of the year.

Tire New Deal urged domestic tire companies to reshuffle multinational tire companies in recent years have increased investment in China, industry analysts believe that, in addition to the domestic auto market outlook is promising, the renminbi continues to be high, but also prompted the giants to seize the opportunity to seize the bottom of a big reason.

At the same time, the "Tire Industry Policy" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology more than a month ago will also make the domestic tire industry reshuffle. The newly issued "Tire Industry Policy" has improved the access threshold of the tire industry from many aspects such as products, production capacity, technology, investment, energy conservation, and environmental protection, and has cooled the current investment in tires. Although the introduction of the New Deal has, on the face of it, limited investment and raised industry standards, in fact, most of the diagonal tires currently produced are small-scale enterprises. With the policy crowding out, these companies will have to withdraw from the market.

In September last year, the United States launched special tire protection measures for China and imposed a three-year punitive tariff on all imported cars and light truck tires from China. Affected by this, China's tire exports to the United States fell by 20.1% in the first half of this year. The reporter recently learned from the South China Tire Company, which was greatly affected at that time, that large domestic companies are slowly emerging from the shadow of the “US Tire Special Protection Case.”

“The special security case has had a huge impact on the export of rubber tires from South China to the United States, but after more than a year's adjustment, the company has now basically stepped out of the difficulties. This year's sales volume has also generally risen by more than 20%. But ordinary passenger car tires are There is still no sales in the U.S. market, which is mainly limited by the tariff of 35% after the special security case, said Li Xiaoyun, assistant to general manager of South China Rubber & Tire Co., Ltd., in an interview.

Under the influence of the U.S. tire special protection case, the company's exports of U.S. rubber tires have so far decreased by 30% to 40%. Li Xiaoyun introduced that South China Rubber Tire Company has formulated a series of measures. First of all, for the export market, the company has stepped up product structure adjustments, accelerated the development of high-performance, high-quality products, and adopted a 15%-20% price increase measure in foreign markets in due course to absorb some of the pressure of a substantial tax increase. On the other hand, the company has shifted the main target markets for exports from Europe and the United States to the Middle East, Africa, Australia and other countries and regions. At the same time, Huanan Rubber Tire Co., Ltd. has turned its attention to domestic sales. Li Xiaoyun disclosed that the proportion of domestic sales of tires in South China has risen from more than 40% in 2009 to more than 50% in 2010. At the same time, the company settled in Changsha from the end of April this year, the first high-end image store of Wanli Tire. It is estimated that by the end of this year, 50 such high-end brand image stores will reach 50. It is expected that by the end of the year, the company’s high-end brand, Wanli Tire, will achieve The goal of establishing 2,000 contracted stores across the country.