In recent years demand for retreaded truck & bus tyres had declined sharply in the face of aggressive competition from short-lived single-life tyres from Asia, many supplied at subsidised prices.
The UK retreading industry has confronted this challenge, investing in recent years over £30 million in improvements to skills, flexibility and plant performance.
Truck & bus tyre retreading has the potential for a further 25% increase in market share, reversing the recent losses to low cost single-life “budget” tyres. This would restore the market share of retreaded truck & bus tyres to its historical level of over 45% of replacement tyre sales, save at least 300,000 tyres every year (corresponding to a 18% reduction in UK truck & bus tyre consumption) and support over 5,500 UK jobs.
The growing deployment of technological developments in both tyre design and in-service tyre stewardship offers the potential of further increasing the market share of retreaded truck & bus tyres towards 50% of the replacement market.
