Future Trends: From Price to R&D-Driven Quality

2025 has witnessed a profound adjustment of the global tire export pattern,with the Belt and Road Initiative becoming the most important driving force for the growth of the tire industry's overseas market. By the end of 2025, the cumulative number of countries and regions participating in the Belt and Road cooperation has exceeded 150, and the high-quality construction of the initiative has opened up a broad market space for the  global tire trade, effectively hedging the market pressure brought by the trade barriers in mature European and American markets.

The latest global tire trade data shows that in the first 11 months of 2025, the export volume of semi-steel and all-steel tires to Belt and Road countries accounted for 60% and 72% of the total global export volume respectively, becoming the absolute main force of tire export growth.Among them, the incremental contribution of Belt and Road countries to semi-steel tire export reached 76%, and the all-steel tire export to non-Belt and Road countries even showed a negative growth trend, which fully reflects the strong pulling effect of emerging markets under the initiative on the global tire industry.

Emerging Markets Show Distinct Demand Characteristics and Huge Potential Driven by the Belt and Road Initiative, the infrastructure construction and logistics transportation industry of emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, South America and Africa have developed rapidly, which has directly stimulated the demand for the tire replacement market. At the same time, the slow recovery of the overseas automobile supply chain has led to the explosive growth of automobile exports, forming a strong "automobile-tire" export linkage effect, and indirectly driving the supporting demand of tires.

Different emerging market regions show distinct tire demand

characteristics:

Southeast Asia: As the main producing area of natural rubber, the region has a huge demand for all-steel tires driven by infrastructure construction and urban logistics,and the local tire consumption volume has maintained a double-digit growth rate for consecutive years. The demand for high-cost performance and durable tires is the

mainstream of the market.

South America: As the largest automobile market in the emerging market, the region has a large supply gap of tires, and the continuous improvement of the local trade

environment has created favorable conditions for tire export. The market has a high demand for semi-steel tires matching passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.

Africa: The truck tire market has maintained a compound annual growth rate of more than 6% in recent years. With the continuous advancement of local transportation infrastructure construction, the demand for heavy-duty all-steel tires  and engineering machinery tires is growing rapidly, becoming a new incremental point of the global tire market.

The Global Tire Industry Accelerates the Layout of Overseas Capacity 

Localization

Facing the new pattern of tire export driven by the Belt and Road Initiative, global tire enterprises have accelerated the pace of overseas capacity layout, and the localization production model has become a new trend of the industry's high-quality going global. The overseas capacity layout of tire enterprises has experienced three stages of development:the initial raw material layout in Southeast Asia, the tariff avoidance layout around Europe and America, and the current incremental mining in South America and Africa, forming a multi-dimensional and global capacity layout system.

The localization of overseas capacity not only reduces the raw material procurement and transportation costs of tire enterprises, but also effectively avoids the impact of international trade barriers and tariff policies, and better meets the local market demand. The latest industry data shows that 2024-2025 is the peak period of overseas capacity commissioning of global tire enterprises, and the local sales volume of tires produced by overseas bases is increasing year by year. This trend will lead to the gradual transformation of the global tire trade from direct export to "overseas capacity localization sales", and the industrial chain and supply chain of the global tire industry will be further optimized and upgraded.

The Future Development Trend of the Global Tire Export Market

With the continuous deepening of the Belt and Road Initiative, the global tire export market will further move from "price competition" to "R&D-driven" high-quality development. The core competitiveness of tire enterprises will no longer be limited to product price, but more reflected in product performance, technological innovation and localized service capacity.

Emerging markets will continue to be the core growth engine of the global tire industry in the next 3-5 years. Tire enterprises need to adjust their product structure and market strategy according to the different demand characteristics of various regions, develop customized tire products for local markets, and at the same time strengthen the construction of local after-sales service systems. Only in this way can they seize the market

opportunities brought by the Belt and Road Initiative and achieve sustainable development in the fierce global market competition.