Meet the world's top 5 tire makers

Michelin is the world's largest tire maker.

And the company it keeps at the top of the list is familiar, too.

In the days and weeks ahead, we'll take a deeper dive into how the previous year shaped up for the world's 75 largest tire makers, exploring financials, acquisitions and investments along the way.

Sister publication Tire Business recently published the Top 75 ranking of global tire makers, and it offers deeper insights into the ranking, the data behind it and the subsequent analysis therein.

And while there are some changes to the ranking this year—shuffling among the Top 15, for instance, and the debuts of several newcomers to the list—the major players held their ground. You'll find a story detailing all of that on our website beginning Wednesday.

From there, Rubber News will dig deeper into this analysis and take a look at some of the reasons for the growth major tire makers have seen in the Sept. 4 print issue. The full ranking of the top 75 tire makers will appear there and in our data store in the coming days.

For now, though, here's what you need to know about the five companies standing atop the list.

In 2020, Michelin took the highest position on the annual tire ranking when its 2019 sales topped No. 2 Bridgestone, snapping Bridgestone's 11-year reign at the top.

Michelin's attainment of that No. 1 spot was driven by a pair of acquisitions—the $1.45 billion purchase of Camso in mid-2018 and the $545 million deal for Indonesian tire maker P.T. Multistrada Arah Sarana TBK in early 2019.

The Clermont-Ferrand, France-based tire maker hasn't yet relinquished the spot. In fact, it's still growing.

Last year, Michelin posted sales of around $30 billion, an estimated 94 percent of which came from tire sales. It marked a roughly $1.97 billion improvement over 2021.

And while it's true Michelin's non-tire business—which falls into the around and beyond tire spaces—is growing, the company isn't wavering on its core products. In fact, it's investing for further growth, especially in North America.

Michelin in March announced a $220 million investment that will serve as a backbone for further growth, the kind of growth built on the sustainability of its operations and products. The funding is aimed at the company's Nova Scotia operations, where it will expand capacity for EV tires, larger-rim-diameter tires and more fuel efficient truck tires.

It also will allow for upgrades to ensure more efficient and sustainable manufacturing.

Another major move from Michelin came in May when the company detailed a $100 million investment to boost capacity at its Camso-branded rubber tracks plant in Junction City, Kan. This will further strengthen Michelin's ag product portfolio.

Growing and strengthening is a common theme for Michelin, which is also quick to note that it's a mobility company at its core. To this end, the company has made a number of recent investments, acquisitions and divestments intended to strengthen its position globally and establish a framework that supports its tire expertise.

It's a vision that Michelin articulates as evolving "with, around and beyond tires."

As Michelin looks to strengthen its portfolio around and beyond tires, Bridgestone is working on narrowing its focus just a bit.

Since 2019, the percentage of Bridgestone's corporate sales attributed to tires is estimated to have grown. In 2019, it was estimated that 75 percent of sales was from the company's tire business. And while that estimate dropped by just one point in 2020, it grew to 80 percent in 2021 and then 85 percent in 2022—during which Bridgestone reported sales of $26.6 billion.

The Tokyo-based tire maker made at least 16 significant moves in 2021, setting the stage for a big year in 2022.

That same year—2022—Bridgestone made some major announcements and completed some moves. And all of them are aimed at a single vision: bringing more tires to the market, and do so more sustainably. Including in North America.

Perhaps the most prominent example of Bridgestone North America Inc.'s efforts is the $550 million investment in its Warren County, Tenn., truck/bus tire facility. The company this month broke ground on the project, which is expected to be substantially completed by 2026. The funding not only will increase output, it will help ensure that the products coming out of the plant are more sustainable and new mobility-ready.

Bridgestone last year opened its new $21 million, 80,000-sq.-ft. race tire manufacturing plant in Akron, expanding capabilities and ensuring efficient operations.

And when it comes to sustainability, retreading is key for the tire maker. So Bridgestone is focusing capital expenditures on growing its expertise in this area, particularly at its tread rubber facility in Abilene, Texas. The tire maker broke ground on a $60 million expansion there in May.

Bridgestone's also investing in sustainable materials, including guayule. Last year, the company said it would put another $42 million into growing its cultivation of the desert shrub, an alternative natural rubber. Bridgestone's guayule research also has backing in the form of grants from the USDA and the Department of Energy.

Guayule has been used successfully in racing tires for more than a year, and this year Bridgestone took sustainable racing further by incorporating post-consumer plastics into the Firestone Firehawk racing tires' synthetic rubber.

Goodyear's gearing up for a really big moment.

On Tuesday, the tire maker will celebrate its 125th anniversary. And it will do so as the world's third-largest tire maker.

The Akron-based company anchored its place there with the acquisition of Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.—a fellow Ohio-based tire maker—and it has fully realized the benefits of that purchase in the 2022 financial results.

Goodyear recorded sales of $17.89 billion, an improvement of about $3 billion over 2021 when it saw partial impact from the Cooper acquisition. Those 2022 sales are about $7.5 billion higher than 2020—the last year before the deal for Cooper was finalized.

As it heads into its 126th year, Goodyear is focusing on big things. Innovation, for one. Sustainability for another.

The tire maker has a storied history in innovation, playing a key role in the moon landing for instance. And in the 21st century, it's pushing the envelope with technologies such as nonpneumatic tire development, which it put to the test in Las Vegas earlier this year.

When it comes to sustainability, the company has articulated some of the most aggressive targets in the industry. Early in 2023, it showed it could be on its way to meeting them. Goodyear unveiled a 90-percent-sustainable-materials demonstration tire that passed all required regulatory and internal testing. It chalks the success up to sustainable ingredients—17 in all, across 12 different tire components.

One of those, of course, is soybean oil—an advancement that Goodyear has been proud to embrace. But another sustainable material coming into its arsenal is sustainable carbon black. In May, Monolith announced that it was working closely with Goodyear to deliver more sustainable carbon black that would take EV tires further.

All of the tire makers in the Top 5 would be quick to tell you that they're mobility companies first.

Continental A.G. really is.

Of all the companies on the Global Tire Ranking, Continental easily has the most diversified portfolio of mobility products and businesses. And tires are just one small piece of that.

Last year, Continental recorded about $12.5 billion in tire sales, which accounted for just 30 percent of the corporation's total sales for 2022.

And like all major players in the tire space, Continental has recorded some big wins with sustainability and innovation, setting the stage for a more sustainable future. And it's putting its promises right on the sidewall.

For proof, look no further than UltraContact NXT, a 65-percent-sustainable materials tire that Continental has begun producing in Poland.

To help demonstrate the sustainability of the materials in the tire, it bears a "contains recycled materials" logo. Among those recycled materials is post-consumer plastic bottles. The tire employs the company's ContiRe.Tex technology, which can turn post-consumer PET bottles into key reinforcing materials.

It's also ensuring that renewable materials—hevea natural rubber, for instance—is sustainably sourced and has developed technologies to ensure that it is.

Moreover, when it comes to new mobility, Continental is going to be ahead of the game. Because all of its tire products will be ready. That's right. Continental isn't pursuing an EV-only line of tires—it intends for all of its products to meet customer expectations for EV fitments.

And Conti would tell you that they already do.

To help customers better understand this, the tire maker is adding an EV-ready symbol to its products.

Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. maintained the No. 5 spot on this year's ranking with sales of around $7.16 billion for 2022. But how long it holds down that position is anyone's guess.

That's because both Pirelli & C. S.p.A. and Hankook Tire & Technology Co. Ltd. are within striking distance, with 2022 sales of $6.95 billion and $6.31 billion, respectively. Hankook, for one, is eyeing that No. 5 spot and has articulated a goal of capturing it in the years ahead.

And behind Hankook is No. 8 Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd., which posted sales of $5.74 billion last year. Yokohama just completed the acquisition of Trelleborg Wheels Systems S.p.A., which had sales in the $1.18 billion range for 2022.

All that said, don't count Sumitomo out. The company, whose tire business accounts for about 85.5 percent of its annual sales, is growing. And it's doing so in North America, a region where it saw revenue growth of around 23 percent in 2022.

In fact, the company expects to see continued growth in North America through 2028.

Driving that growth is a $130 million expansion project aiming to nearly double capacity at the 100-year-old facility in Tonawanda, N.Y., where it makes passenger, light truck and truck/bus tires. And beginning this year, some of that growth will take shape.

Rick Brennan, vice president of marketing for Sumitomo Rubber North America told Tire Business earlier this year that new machines will come online at the end of 2023 and production will continue to ramp up through 2024.