Following the rising prices of raw materials, high shipping prices and poor price transmission, tire enterprises have ushered in new problems.
Zhuzhiwei, tire analyst of Longzhong information, said in an interview with the reporter of Securities Daily that on the whole, the tire industry is facing unprecedented pressure this year. First, the price of raw materials has been running at a high level this year, bringing pressure on the cost side to tire enterprises; Second, the decline of market demand brings pressure on the sales side; The suspension of production was announced by many enterprises, which also had a great impact on the three tire industries.
automobile enterprises’ production suspension affects the tire industry
Under the repeated epidemic situation, the “shutdown” of the automobile industry has made the tire industry upstream “worse”. It is understood that since March, a number of auto enterprises in Jilin, Shanghai and other places have successively announced shutdown, but so far, there are still many auto enterprises that have not resumed production.
The shutdown of automobile enterprises directly affects every link of its industrial chain. Taking Shanghai as an example, Wang Xianbin, director of Gaishi Automobile Research Institute, told the Securities Daily: “Shanghai’s automobile production is close to 10% of the overall passenger car market, and the production of new energy vehicles accounts for nearly 17% of China’s production. Now, some factories in the Yangtze River Delta, such as Tesla, Volkswagen, Geely and the Great Wall, have stopped production, which is expected to lead to a cliff like decline in automobile production in the second quarter.”
“The shutdown of auto enterprises not only has an impact on themselves, but also the upstream parts enterprises, including tire enterprises.” Wang Xianbin said.
According to the reporter’s interview, due to the repeated epidemic, in fact, in the first quarter, the relevant parts enterprises have faced the extension of product delivery time and the decline of performance. An auto parts enterprise told reporters that the epidemic had an impact on the auto supply chain and the company’s production, acceptance, delivery efficiency and cost. “In the first quarter, the company’s revenue and net profit both fell. In addition, the decline in customer vehicle production also affected the delivery of the company’s products.”
An automobile logistics enterprise told the reporter of Securities Daily that the epidemic outbreak since March has had a great impact on automobile industrial bases such as Changchun, Shanghai and Shenyang. At the same time, the epidemic prevention and control policies in many places have a great impact on road transportation.
Zhu Zhiwei admitted to reporters that the epidemic had a serious impact on the automobile industry and also affected the supporting market of the tire industry. “The supporting market accounts for 20% to 25% of China’s tire production, but no enterprise has given a first-line intuitive data feedback on the specific impact on the supporting market.”
The reporter interviewed a number of listed tire companies. The company replied that the shutdown of automobile enterprises had an impact on the company, but the specific data have not been counted. Let the reporter pay attention to the data of the first quarterly report of the company.
tire enterprise “no profit and no quantity”
Under the circumstances that the cost of raw materials is pressing step by step, the terminal price rise is difficult to achieve results, and the demand is further cold, tire enterprises are facing the dilemma of “no profit and no quantity”.
“This year, the price of raw materials is still at a high level. Especially from March and April, the price of carbon black has further increased, and the cost of tire factories is extremely under pressure. However, on the demand side, its sales demand is difficult to keep up.” Zhu Zhiwei told reporters, “the factory continues to raise prices, but the demand can not keep up with the terminal price increase, which continuously compresses the profits of tire enterprises, and tire enterprises are obviously in a state of ‘no profit and no quantity’.”
It is reported that affected by factors such as the price of raw materials and the rise of tire manufacturing costs, although tire enterprises have initiated several rounds of price increases since 2021, due to factors such as the decline in demand in the terminal market, the price increases of tire enterprises are difficult to be transmitted to the terminal market and fall into the situation of “invalid price increases”.
Sailun Group Co.Ltd(601058) also said that since 2021, facing the pressure of rising raw material prices and sea freight prices, companies in the tire industry have made frequent price adjustment announcements and prices have risen many times. Despite the continuous adjustment of tire prices, the overall profit of the tire industry still decreased year-on-year according to the statistics of industry associations.
According to the disclosed annual report data of listed companies, the net profits of Gui Zhou Tyre Co.Ltd(000589) , Qingdao Sentury Tire Co.Ltd(002984) , Sailun Group Co.Ltd(601058) , Guangdong Dcenti Auto-Parts Stock Limited Company(603335) and other four companies decreased year-on-year in 2021, of which Gui Zhou Tyre Co.Ltd(000589) decreased the most, 67.52%.
Zhu Zhiwei told reporters that since the beginning of this year, although the export market of tire enterprises has been slowly recovering since the Spring Festival, the overall shipment situation is still not as good as that in the same period of previous years. From the situation of foreign new orders in March, the market is not optimistic about the export situation in the first half of the year.
From the perspective of the Chinese market, the production decline caused by the shutdown of cars has affected the decline in the demand of the tire supporting market. In addition, the tire replacement market is also affected due to the poor logistics of epidemic control. According to the data, the prosperity index of China’s logistics industry in March 2022 was 48.7%, down 2.5 percentage points from the previous month; China’s warehousing index was 46.9%, down 4.4 percentage points from the previous month.
According to the monitoring data of Zhuo Chuang information, the current enterprise tire inventory is high. By the end of March 2022, the total inventory of semi steel tire sample enterprises was 18.63 million, with a month on month increase of 9.07% and a year-on-year increase of 15.77%. The total inventory of all steel tire sample enterprises was 12.435 million, with a month on month increase of 8.81% and a year-on-year increase of 41.34%, which also means that the sales pressure of Chinese tire enterprises in the short term is huge.
market is still optimistic about its prospect
“In 2022, the tire industry is changing from a comfortable state to a difficult period in previous years, and the industry is also accelerating the reshuffle.” Zhu Zhiwei thinks.
“Since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, stimulated by favorable policies, the sales volume of Chinese tire enterprises has been better. Although the dividend has subsided in 2021, the overall demand, including domestic sales and export, has provided better support for tire sales.” Zhu Zhiwei said, “from this year, the tire industry will face the pressure of ‘no profit and no amount’ in the first half of the year or the whole year, and enterprises will enter a difficult period of development.”
However, for the market prospect of the tire industry, Zhu Zhiwei believes that the market is not so pessimistic about the development prospect of tire enterprises. Although the development of the industry is difficult, there are still some outside funds staring at the industry. “After all, new energy vehicles have great development potential in the future, and the demand for tires is still growing.”
Sailun Group Co.Ltd(601058) said that the overall pressure on the tire industry has exacerbated the reshuffle speed of domestic tire enterprises to a certain extent. In 2021, many small and medium-sized tire enterprises have gone bankrupt, but some Chinese tire head enterprises still choose to continue to expand production capacity, actively adjust the tire product structure and actively develop in the green direction of high quality and low energy consumption.
Qingdao Sentury Tire Co.Ltd(002984) also believes that the strong development momentum of new energy vehicles provides a good market opportunity for the development of the company.
“Large enterprises may acquire more small enterprises this year. In addition, some head tire enterprises are also accelerating the pace of developing new factories, including the layout of overseas factories.” Zhu Zhiwei further said, “the layout of China’s tire factories is mainly inclined to new energy vehicles.”
