With its latest tire shipments forecast, the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association is projecting some more familiar numbers.
USTMA said March 5 that it expects total U.S. tire shipments to rise 1.1 percent to 335.7 million units this year. That's about 3.8 million units over 2023 and 3 million more units than 2019.
The projection would surpass the previous record of 335.2 million units in 2021, according to USTMA data.
In total, the USTMA projects shipment growth in five of the six major categories it tracks, with only truck/bus original equipment shipments coming up shy of the 2023 total. The trade association—which represents a dozen tire companies with U.S.-based manufacturing capacities—did not cite reasons for its forecast.
Passenger tires should see a 1.4 percent improvement in OE units shipped—reaching 46.3 million this year—when compared to 2023. Replacement shipments should hold fairly steady. USTMA predicts a 0.5 percent year-over-year increase in replacement passenger tires shipments in 2024 to about 220.2 million units.
Meanwhile, light truck tire shipments are expected to hit the 6 million unit mark for OE and come in around 35.2 million units on the replacement side. This represents a 2.6 percent year over year increase for OE, and a 2.8 percent improvement for replacement.
Truck/bus tires on the other hand are expected to have an up-and-down year.
On the OE side, USTMA has forecast a 3.3 percent drop in units shipped compared to 2023, with its forecast of about 6 million units. Meanwhile the replacement side is poised to see a year-over-year increase of about 5.9 percent, with shipments expected to hit 22 million units. That's up from the 20.8 million units shipped in 2023, which was a 22.5-percent drop from 2022.
So how does that all of that compare to pre-pandemic levels of 2019?
On the OE side, the passenger tires forecast matches the 46.3 million unit mark of five years ago, while the light truck tires shipment prediction is up 2.4 percent from the 5.9 million units shipped in 2019.
For truck/bus tires, the 2024 prediction is 7.7 percent lower than the 2019 shipment levels of 6.5 million units.
This year, replacement light truck and truck tire shipments are expected to see 8.2 percent and 16.2 percent improvements over 2019, respectively. Replacement passenger car tire shipments are expected to come in about 1.1 percent below the 2019 threshold of 222.6 million.
The Washington-based trade group routinely does not comment in its forecasts on domestic versus import sourcing.
Last year domestic manufacturing fell last year in all three major categories: passenger tire output down 5.1 percent to 95.6 million units; light truck tire production down 11.3 percent to 23.4 million units; and truck/bus tire output down 8 percent to 12.4 million units.
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