If I had to characterise the year of 2023 in China’s tire industry, I would say 2023 is the year China’s tire industry grew up. With modern technology; multi-national manufacturing footprint; devolving local marketing decisions and product development decisions to local teams, the industry is quickly moving away from a pure Chinese model, to a much more international profile.

Having said that, the domestic tire business in China has been terrible through most of 2023. It is exports and overseas factories that are bringing in the profits for some of the top tire makers during 2023 and into 2024.

If the domestic economy improves, then China’s tire makers will barely be able to cope with demand, given the rationalisation seen in China’s tire industry over the last five years.

During the period from 1995 – 2010, China launched a policy of developing a large-scale tire industry. Existing tire makers – and many new companies – started adding tire capacity at pace. The tires were not good. In fact, many of them were pretty awful. That came as a consequence of the lack of modern mixing technology; old tire performance technology largely based on older legacy designs from the 1950s.

And, above all, the very different conditions of use in China (in the 1990s) compared to the outside world.

Nevertheless, cheap tires – no matter how bad – found markets in Africa, central America, the UK and other parts of the world. China’s tire industry grew big, and these tires took market share away from the majors.

Since about 2015, China has been seeking to transform its tire industry from ‘big’ to ‘strong’.

The industry – with governmental support – is getting there.