Several challenges face the commercial truck tire market, but there are opportunities, too, as tire manufacturers and suppliers explain in this MTD exclusive.
Brad Persons, national sales head, commercial tires, Apollo Tyres Ltd.: Our biggest challenge right now is finding additional people as our business rapidly expands. It is a great challenge to have and we are working through it.
Chris Tavares, executive director, commercial marketing, Bridgestone Americas Inc.: Perhaps the biggest opportunity we see is in helping our customers understand and embrace the value in a comprehensive tire management program like Bridgestone Fleet Solutions. Bridgestone Commercial is making incredible headway with a number of large and medium-sized fleets and those customers are readily seeing how the use of data, customized reporting and Bandag retreads is driving significant bottom-line results.
Aaron Murphy, senior vice president, CMA LLC/Double Coin: Higher-priced inventory. Like many in the industry, our dealers received large quantities of higher-priced product in late-2022, just as market prices dropped due to logistical costs plummeting. Helping customers work through this issue is a focus. The decrease in demand has created price concessions across the board.
KJ Kim, TBR marketing and sales director, Hankook Tire North America: Very large quantities of budget brand products coming into the U.S. market, along with lower prices, make it difficult from a competitive standpoint. Hankook continues to provide a competitive price, top quality and excellent service to customers.
Pete Salvan, vice president of sales, Prinx Chengshan Tire North America Inc.: Since entering the U.S. and Canadian market in 2019, our brands are still relatively new to the market, so getting the word out about them is one of our challenges. Feedback from dealers that have been selling the tires and from fleets that have been running them has been extremely positive.
Brian Sheehey, senior vice president, Ralson Tire North America: As a new entrant into the market (and) establishing our customer base and supply chain, there is a hesitancy from the market to commit to significant factory orders until their domestic inventory levels are corrected. In order to address this, Ralson Tire North America is working to establish a network of domestic, just-in-time supply locations.
Al Eagleson, segment manager, TBR North America, Sailun Tires Americas: Trucking fleets are facing challenges on all fronts. Labor resources, such as drivers and technicians, are in short supply. Fuel and insurance still remain high, on top of increased maintenance costs. All of these add to an eroding profit margin for many fleets. Trucking companies are continuously on the lookout for products that deliver them a lower total cost of ownership.
Joaquin Gonzalez Jr., president, Tire Group International LLC: The biggest challenge is to quickly replace the inventory purchased during the high freight cost period with current, relatively cheaper products. There are specific sizes that have maintained good sellout volume, but some of the more traditional sizes have seen a big decline in movement.
Dave Johnston, senior manager, commercial product and business development, Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp.: While the overall balance of supply and demand in the market has improved moving into 2023, the mix of products must be routinely monitored to ensure we maximize fill rates. This mix is closely observed and adjusted to keep our customers stocked and ready for sales.
Demetric Mass, national product manager, truck tires, Yokohama Off-Highway Tires America Inc.: Many tire distributors and dealers are well-stocked with tires, so the big issues this year are likely to revolve around tapping into demand to reduce inventory. It’s likely that we’ll see some discomfort around pricing as dealers try to find a balance between aggressively pricing inventory to sell and trying to hang onto margins.
Dan Funkhouser, vice president, commercial sales, Yokohama Tire Corp.: Our biggest challenge is the swollen inventory levels in the market and uncertainty around the future of the economy. Regardless, we are optimistic for the remainder of the year. Again, all indicators point to strong demand for our brand and we continue to focus on driving that demand at the end user level to assist our replacement channel partners. So we feel well-positioned to take advantage of any upside in the market.
