Passenger Tire Shipments Make End-of-Year Comeback

Feb. 23, 2016

What a comeback! With less than a quarter to go in the year, the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) projected domestic replacement passenger tire sales of 204.7 million units.

When the preliminary RMA numbers came in, however, the total was 206.2 million, or 1.5 million more than predicted.

To a lesser extent, the LT tire shipment total also ended up higher than expected. The prediction was 28.9 million. The final tally was 29.3 million.

Despite the difference in final numbers versus projected numbers, they were still on target trend-wise. The replacement passenger numbers were projected to decrease, and the LT numbers were expected to increase.

Replacement tires (in millions of units)

Passenger: 2014 = 206.5, 2015 = 206.2.

Light truck: 2014 = 28.7, 2015 = 29.3.

Original equipment numbers were almost spot on. The 2015 estimates for passenger and LT tires were 50 million and 4.4 million, respectively. The preliminary numbers were 49.7 million and 4.4 millon.

Compared to 2014, the OE passenger tire units were up 4% (from 47.8 million to 49.7 million) while the OE LT tire units were down 4.3% (from 4.6 million to 4.4 million).

The RMA will finalize the numbers later this year.

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