John Healy is a managing director and research analyst with Northcoast Research Holdings LLC, based in Cleveland, Ohio. Healy covers a variety of subsectors of the automotive industry and writes MTD's monthly Your Marketplace column.
Following recent trends, our latest conversations with dealers leave us with a view that retail sell-out trends are continuing to trend downward, showing decreases on a sequential basis since this past October.
Recent commentary from dealers suggests that consumer demand for passenger and light truck replacement tires was down in August compared to last year, while also showing a stronger decline versus levels seen during July.
Our recent conversations with dealers leave us with the view that retail sell-out trends showed stability in November, with a slight drop in momentum from October. From a volume standpoint, surveyed dealers saw unit sales improve by roughly 1% to 2% compared to the prior year’s period, which was still the fourth highest observed growth rate in our tire demand index for the year.
Feedback from dealers leaves us with a view that retail sell-out trends showed strength in October with a notable pickup in momentum from September. From a volume standpoint, surveyed dealers reported they saw unit sales improve roughly 1% to 2% compared to the prior year’s period and came in as the third highest observed growth rate in our tire demand index for the year.
Our recent conversations with dealers leave us with a view that retail sell-out trends showed strength in August with a notable pickup in momentum from July. From a volume standpoint, surveyed dealers reported they saw unit sales improve roughly 3% to 4% compared to the prior year’s period and came in notably above recent growth rates observed in our tire demand index.
Our recent conversations with dealers provide us with a view that retail sell-out trends remained healthy in June and continue to trend on the positive side of the ledger
Recent conversations with dealers leave us with a view that retail sell-out remains healthy and trends continue to remain on the positive side of the ledger. From a volume standpoint, surveyed dealers relayed they saw unit sales volumes improve in the low-single-digit range compared to the same period last year and were up roughly 1% for the first quarter as a whole.
Recent conversations with dealers leave us with a view that retail sell-out continues to trend positively as retail conditions remain healthy and volumes improved over the prior year’s period (8th straight month). From a volume standpoint, surveyed dealers relayed they saw unit sales volumes improve modestly (~1.1%) compared to the same period last year.
Our recent discussions with dealers leave us with a view that sell-out trends improved in May versus the prior year’s period, re-accelerating from year-over-year contractions early in the year. While always somewhat subjective, we note commentary from installers was at the highest level since October 2017. From a volume standpoint, surveyed dealers reported they saw unit sales volumes up nearly 2% relative to the previous year’s period.
According to the results of our survey, demand for passenger and light truck replacement tires at retail was essentially the same in February versus the prior year’s period, which mitigates some of the positive momentum the industry had built since October 2017.