Thailand remains the biggest exporter of tires to the United States market in three key categories - passenger, light truck and medium truck tires.
And even though Thailand’s passenger and consumer tire exports to the domestic market actually slowed slightly in 2022, there’s no sign of the nation giving up its top spot in the near future.
Thailand has a 10-million-unit cushion in passenger tire shipments and a more than 14 million-unit lead when combining passenger and light truck tire units.
Full-year estimates show more than 164 million passenger tires were imported into the U.S. in 2022, up from 151 million in 2021. (That’s an 8% increase.)
A year ago, a country made the top 10 list if it shipped more than 3.9 million passenger tire units to the U.S. In 2022, that threshold was 4.2 million units, which meant Brazil, with 3.1 million imports, and Portugal, with three million, were both short of the top rankings.
China imported 2.7 million passenger tires into the U.S. in 2022.
Outside factors influence all of these numbers and the war in Ukraine prompted some tire manufacturers to adjust — or sell off — their business operations in Russia. And while neither country is historically a large provider of tires to the U.S., the downturn still was noticeable.
In 2021, 900,000 passenger tires were imported into the U.S. from Russia, compared to less than 650,000 in 2022. The difference was even more stark in Ukraine, with 447,000 passenger tires shipped to the U.S. in 2021, compared to about 153,000 shipped in 2022.
Demand for commercial truck tires in 2022 drove an incredible increase in imported units of nearly seven million tires. An estimated 24 million medium truck tire units were imported into the U.S. in 2022, up from 17.2 million tires in 2021. Eight of the 10 largest exporting countries posted giant double-digit year-over-year increases.
Thailand holds a comfortable lead over the others in this category. The next-biggest exporter, Vietnam, increased shipments by more than 70% in 2022. That was after a 56.8% increase from 2020 to 2021.
The digital edition of MTD’s 2023 Facts Issue can be viewed here!
