Pneumatic Rubber Tires: Shared Manufacturers, Different Demand Channels
Executive summary
New pneumatic tires serve passenger cars, commercial vehicles, off-highway machinery, motorcycles, and bicycles. Passenger-car tires account for about 52.1% of exports in the broad category, while the rest spans products with different buyers and specifications. BACI 2024 exports total about $101.2 billion, with an exporter HHI of 776; China accounts for 22.6%, Thailand 7.7%, Japan 5.9%, Germany 5.4%, and the United States 4.7%.
The industry includes diversified manufacturers and specialists. Goodyear reports producing tires for cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, and off-highway uses at 53 plants in 20 countries. Titan International specializes in agricultural and construction tires and wheels, naming OEM customers such as AGCO, Caterpillar, CNH, Deere, Hitachi, Kubota, Liebherr, and Volvo. Kenda expanded from bicycle tires into motorcycles and passenger-car radials.
Inputs and production
Goodyear identifies natural and synthetic rubber, carbon black, and other materials among tire inputs. Michelin and Sumitomo Electric document high-carbon steel cord and bead-wire uses, but the exact customs-category correspondence remains unverified. Tire makers commonly compound rubber internally from base materials; the reviewed sources do not establish that a standalone compounded-rubber product is routinely purchased as an upstream input.
Titan's disclosures support off-highway wheel and tire supply to agricultural and construction equipment makers. This is stronger evidence than generic assumptions about tire use in stationary machinery.
Retreading, regulation, and network audit
Bridgestone's Bandag disclosure says about half of replacement truck tires in North America are retreaded. Goodyear also operates commercial tire-service and retreading centers. Retreading is therefore a commercially established route that extends tire life, particularly for fleets.
The report removes proposed supply links to six stationary machine groups and to wheelchairs and prams because primary sources did not support those uses as general downstream categories. It retains connections to passenger and commercial vehicles, buses, motorcycles, bicycles, construction and agricultural machinery, retreads, and tubes based on company disclosures. EU labeling and type-approval frameworks are documented; USTMA materials establish end-of-life programs, but the reviewed evidence did not quantify recovery rates.