Tireworld Insight: Headway to be made to cultivate domestic tire brands

China’s homebred tire makers now face probably the most serious challenge they have met in brand-building.

There’s still a tough bottleneck to break in cultivating China’s homebred tire brands, said analysts attending the 2014 International Tire Technology Forum held recently in Hangzhou. “That could be a long way to go.”

Over the past years, China’s tire production has increased rapidly. Growth is particularly significant in the production of semi-steel radial tires for sedan use.

While China’s output of semi-steel radial tires ranks the top place around the globe, the country fails to have its voices more widely heard in the international tire market, or rather, trade frictions have frequently popped up, time after time.

For the second time in five years, the United Steelworkers union has petitioned the International Trade Commission for relief against passenger and light truck tire imports from China.

The USW filed its petition June 3, requesting antidumping and countervailing duty relief under Sections 701 and 731 of the Trade Act of 1930.

The antidumping and countervailing cases recently initiated against Chinese tire brands have made the brand problem in the Chinese tire industry quite outstanding.

Chinese tire makers have long embarked on the low-price strategy, which lead to an impression so deeply rooted that people will think of cheap low-end products once “Made-in China” is mentioned.

Fortunately the tire manufacturing sector in China has noticed the problem and has a strong desire to change the status quo.

Analysts at the forum held that it’s never simply about higher prices or higher R&D inputs when talking about better brand image.

A long-term strategy shall be fixed and the top decision makers of a company shall always bear brand awareness in mind, they argued.

“The latest anti-dumping and countervailing case against China’s tire products, an unpleasant thing though, might be an opportunity to quicken the industry’s transformation from the current export mode,” said Xu Wenying, secretary general of the China Rubber Industry Association.

(Contributed by Olivia, olivia@tireworld.com.cn)