“OUR” AND “NOT OUR”
While domestic companies are still commanding the truck tire segment, passenger cars (which, in fact, have become the subject of our research) are much more complicated and interesting. Here are widely represented both Russian manufacturers seeking to maintain and expand their market positions, as well as foreign companies, often offering higher quality products at reasonable prices. By the way, many “foreigners” have actually been producing products in Russia for a long time, and “ours” are actively trying to enter global markets.
So, among the largest players are the Russian companies SIBUR - Russian Tires, Nizhnekamskshina, Amtel-Vredestein, international Nokian Tires, Continental, Miche-lin, Bridgestone, Goodyear, Ukrainian Rosava, Belarusian Belshina … So far, our”, According to the results of 2006, 54.5% of the market of tires for cars belongs to. True, if you also consider "our" company with a foreign name Amtel-Vredestein. But - first things first.
The largest Russian manufacturer is Nizhnekamskshina company. Once a giant was created in Nizhnekamsk as a “shoe factory” of KamAZ, but today it produces a full range of products. The company belongs to the oil company Tatneft, which, in turn, is controlled by the government of Tatarstan.
SIBUR-Russian Tires is the subsidiary of SIBUR Holding, which is part of the world's largest gas production company Gazprom. SIBUR-Russian Tires now unites several of the largest enterprises: Omskshina (specializes in truck tires), Yaroslavl Tire Plant (full metal cord, passenger cars and aircraft tires), Voltayr-Prom (tires for agricultural machinery and light trucks), Uralshina (tires for light trucks, cars, motorbikes), JV Matador-Omskshina (passenger tires).
The Russian group AMTEL was created by the famous businessman of Indian origin Sudhir Gupta; some time ago, he managed to acquire the Dutch tire manufacturer Vredestein NV, and the company was named Amtel-Vredestein. Two years ago, the shares were placed on the stock exchange, as a result S. Gupta ceased to be the sole owner - now he owns only 30% of the shares; the rest are owned by a number of domestic and international investment companies. The Amtel-Fredestein group (the name is spelled in Russian) includes four enterprises: three tire plants in Russia (Amtel-Volga Region in Kirov, Amtel-Chernozemye in Voronezh and the Moscow Tire Plant), as well as the tire factory in Holland - Vredestein Banden.
The largest international manufacturers, Nokian Tires and Michelin, have long decided to gain a foothold in our market and have opened their own factories in the Leningrad Region and the Moscow Region. In addition, a fairly active policy in Russia is conducted by our old friends, and now competitors - companies from Belarus and Ukraine.
RICH TRENDS
With the overall growth of the car tire market, the share of Russian manufacturers is alas! - is declining. Until recently, this happened due to crowding out small enterprises from the market - such, in our opinion, are doomed in this business.
In turn, the share of imports is constantly growing: in 2006 it amounted to about 37% and this trend is likely to continue. Nevertheless, high sales volumes are forcing global manufacturers to locate their enterprises in Russia. Moreover, Nokian has already announced plans to expand production capacities in the Russian Federation from the current 4 million units. up to 10 million by 2011.
Traditionally, all tires for cars are divided into several conventional segments: A - premium, B - middle class, C - economy class. Conditional, because every now and then on their borders there are different subgroups, say B +.
Today, the premium class is growing at the fastest pace - because the import of foreign passenger cars into the country is increasing; in addition, organized the assembly of foreign cars in place.
Against the background of a general increase in tire consumption, tires of one price segment are being replaced by tires of another. In other words, the products of segment B displace C and so on; expensive ones replace cheap ones! Our fellow citizens, although complaining about poverty, are gradually realizing that buying low-quality tires is cheap but unprofitable, but tires of a higher class are expensive but profitable.
Two trends have been outlined. On the one hand, the largest foreign tire manufacturers in segment A are announcing a season of “special offers” and are starting to supply them at price B (for example, Nokian does). On the other hand, domestic manufacturers enter segment B, which, thanks to new foreign technologies, have significantly improved the quality of their tires and developed new product lines (for example, SIBUR-Russian Tires with the Cordiant brand).
GROW!
The sales volume of the entire Russian tire market in 2006 amounted to 76.4 billion rubles. (at wholesale prices with VAT). This is not so much - 2.5% of the entire global tire market. At the same time, products of our own production accounted for 64.5 billion rubles. (17.1 billion rubles were exported), 29 billion rubles were imported. Experts are sure that by 2010 steady growth will continue - 21% per year in monetary terms, about 15% in quantitative terms.
In the ranking of the world's leading tire companies, three Russian manufacturers (SIBUR-Russian Tires, Amtel-Fredestein and Nizhnekamskshina) are in the top thirty (according to 2005 results, according to Ture Business magazine).
Class A passenger cars are the most profitable today (in two or three years, up to 17 million premium passenger tires will be sold in the country; around 2010, a period of saturation will begin). But those who fill segment B have the most interesting prospects. Let profit here be much more modest, but with the systematic improvement of technologies and development of distribution networks in a really not-so-rich country, they can occupy the largest market sector.
