GfK releases U.S. point-of-sale tire data

NEW YORK—GfK's first release of data from its U.S. point-of-sale tire retail panel is the first of many that U.S. tire retailers and manufacturers will see from now on, according to the German-based market research firm.

For those businesses, this is the first time they will see data that will help them understand countrywide trends, competitor activities, sale prices and brand market share, according to Neil Portnoy, managing director of GfK POS tracking in North America.

GfK is collecting data weekly from more than 3,500 U.S. tire retailing stores, and will update the information to the industry on a monthly basis, Portnoy said.

"For the first time, tire dealers will be able to benchmark against their competitors and the national distribution channel," he said. "We think this is an incredibly important tool for tire companies to have."

The first GfK tire panel report, issued Feb. 7, covered data for 2016 and 2017, Portnoy said. Later in February, it will issue its figures for January 2018.

It is yet to be determined whether GfK will issue public reports every month, but press releases will appear "frequently," Portnoy said.

Every tire dealer on the GfK retail panel has been very helpful to the company, according to Portnoy.

"We owe a great deal of thanks to a lot of people," he said. GfK's greatest thanks, however, go to John Gamauf, retired president of Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire. Gamauf joined the panel in April 2015, soon after its inception.

According to Portnoy, Gamauf was instrumental in persuading thousands of tire dealers to participate in the panel, including Bridgestone Americas' network of more than 2,200 U.S. tire and automotive service centers.

"For three years, Johnny traveled 180 days of the year with us," he said. "Bringing him out of retirement was a stroke of genius on our part. Johnny has many friends in the industry."

Retail sales represent 62 percent of the U.S. tire market, so it was of great importance to the industry to establish a retail panel and create an unbiased replacement tire distribution channel that would be statistically sound and help reduce back orders, Portnoy said in a speech last year at the Clemson University Global Tire Industry Conference in Hilton Head, S.C.

"Can you imagine a supermarket where Campbell's soup is constantly out of stock, or Crest toothpaste?" he said in the speech. "The reason they aren't is that retailers are sending their sellout data straight back to manufacturers."

The independent tire channel sold more than 137 million tires in 2017, which was down 5.6 percent from 2016, according to the first report from GfK.

More than half the tires sold in retail stores, or 75.5 million, were passenger tires, though that number was 7.1 percent below 2016, GfK said.

The big news from the report was that winter tire sales fell 26.6 percent in 2017, to 2.1 million. However, according to Portnoy, there is no reason to assume from this that the winter tire market is fading.

"In 2016, winter tires had a significant increase in sales because of a very active winter season," he said. "Winter tires are not going out of fashion, but we just saw a reduction from the previous year."

Light truck tires sold 20.7 million units in the independent channel in 2017, down 3.1 percent from 2016, Portnoy said.

"But we're not prepared to talk about that," he said. "The purpose of the data is to ask those questions of the industry—questions the channel is ready to ask and answer."

GfK is always looking for new tire dealers to join its panel, but it won't be dropping any, according to Portnoy.

"The bigger the panel, the better the data we have to report," he said. "When tire dealers join our panel, they know they are in for the long haul."

GfK will soon add ultra-high-performance tires to its database, and it already measures brand share in every important tire sector, including passenger, light truck and 4x4, Portnoy said. It also collects data according to rim diameter and price point.

However, for various reasons, it is not ready to release most of the data, he said.