Continental paints positive picture of Commercial Vehicle tyre market

The replacement truck tyre market in Ireland, will finish down 5 per cent this year, according to figures released by Continental.

A broader view of Europe shows the market is up by three per cent in 2014, with the strongest growth (seven per cent) recorded in Western Europe.

Turning his attention to the UK tyre market, UK managing director for Continental, David Smith said that the replacement market has once again seen an increase in 2014, following on from last year’s strong results.

“We are forecasting an increase of around eight per cent on 2013 in the UK,” he saiad.

Compared to previous years there has been very little change in the demand for different application areas. Regional tyres continue to dominate both the UK and Irish market, accounting for 83 per cent of replacement new tyre sales in the UK and 86 per cent in Ireland.

Long distance tyres represent around seven per cent of the market in both countries with construction and urban making up just 10 per cent of the UK market and six per cent in Ireland. Despite urban applications featuring as the smallest sector of the market, 2014 has seen its share increase by 20 per cent.

Smith reveals analysis has shown no significant changes in the top five most popular sizes of tyre sold here in the UK and Ireland. “In the UK the top five sizes make up 71 per cent of sales in 2014 and 81 per cent in Ireland. We do however expect to see changes to the most dominant sizes in the future. We predict 315/70 22.5 to move into the top five driven by the increase in Euro 6 vehicles on the road, which we expect will replace 295/80 22.5 primarily to cope with the extra weight.”

2014 has seen success for a number of innovative products brought to market by Continental Tyres, including new generation tyres and tyre pressure monitoring systems.

“Our generation 3 products have been very well received by the market both here in the UK and Ireland. We have also had great success with our ContiPressureCheck, tyre pressure monitoring system which we updated in late 2014 with a new feature, Automatic Trailer Learning (ATL). ATL is able to automatically and wirelessly detect each trailer tyre, even when the trailer is changed. Next year our focus will be on working with telematics companies to integrate our tyre pressure information into existing systems.

“In 2014 we also launched the first hot retreaded 3rd generation tyres produced at our ContiLifeCycle plant in Hanover, just six months after the new tyre. The ContiRe EcoPlus HT3 is the retreaded version of the new trailer tyre Conti EcoPlus HT3 launched January 2014 and maintains all the same benefits.”