NEUE REIFENZEITUNG Retreading-Special 9/2008 - Reifenpresse.de

Chinese retread market already over
10 million units
The other side of the Chinese price pressure coin is the domestic
retreading market in the People’s Republic. With the price of new
tyres on the up and some factories having production limitations thrust
upon them, one has to ask if this could benefit Chinese retreaders?
True there are continuing question marks over the retreadability of
Chinese produced tyres, and therefore casing availability, but the
sheer volume of truck tyres produced in China means there must be a
steady stream of worn truck and bus tyres that could be retreaded.
In addition, nearly all the leading players in the Chinese market claim
their tyres are retreadable, a statement that is likely to be more readily
accepted in the China than in Europe.
According to the most recent data Tyres & Accessories has
seen, over 10 million retreads were manufactured in China during
2007, with this figure expected to reach 11 million by the end of 2008.
At the same time, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported tyre
production across the country grew 14.8 per cent over last year in
July. The Bureau’s statistics, reported by Dow Jones, show that
January to July 2008, tyre production rose 13.5 per cent year on
year to 329.32 million units.
Then there is general vehicle take up or motorisation, as it is
known. According to the Energy Information Administration, the road
vehicle population will grow from 170 million vehicles in 1996 to 454
million in 2020 in developing regions. In China car ownership is increasing
almost as quickly as the country’s gross domestic product and
by 2020 it is estimated that between 88.85 and 132.24 million privately
owned cars be driving on the roads of China. The point with both of
these figures is that virgin rubber supplies simply will not be able to
keep up with demand of this level. Will China’s retreaders be ready to
offer less virgin rubber intensive products when the time comes?
In 2006, the China Tyre Retreading and Utilization Association
(CTRA) reported that the Chinese retread market consisted of 4 million
mould cure and 5.6 million pre-cure retreads. 40 per cent of hot
retreads were various sizes of agricultural, OTR and light truck tyres
with the remaining 2.4 million units being made up of truck bias and
truck and bus radial tyres. Of the 5.6 million pre-cured the overwhelming
majority are truck retreads (4.6 million) the remaining quantity
were said to be light truck and other retreads. In short, back then 60
per cent of the market was made up of pre-cure retreads, the first
time pre-cure retread volume exceeded mould cure output.
General market conditions have changed a lot since then; raw
material prices and the global OTR tyre shortage are just two factors
that are likely to have significantly impacted the market in this time.
But the fact remains that continuously increasing new tyre
production volumes and improving product quality mean there are an
increasing number of potentially retreadable casings for those ready
to retread them. chris.anthony@tyrepress.com
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