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Starting from late August, more than twenty tire companies, including Cheng Shin, Maxxis, Triangle, Aeolus, Zhongce, etc., have successively released September price adjustment notices.
The mainstream increase for heavy-duty tires is 2%-3%, while engineering tires and inner tubes increased up to 3%-5% at most. The price adjustment time is scheduled from September 1st to the middle or latter half of the month; some special tires will only raise prices in October.
The reason given by manufacturers is the same: natural rubber, carbon black, and steel cord prices have risen, and production costs can no longer be borne.
The rise in raw material prices is no empty talk. Data from September 8th showed that Thailand 20# standard latex spot prices in Shandong surged 2.37% in a day.
Estimates show that the raw material cost for semi-steel tires rose nearly 20% year-on-year, and the increase for heavy-duty tires is similar. Under the same cost pressure, the results are completely different.
Heavy-duty tire manufacturers dare to raise prices collectively, while semi-steel tire companies can only wait and see, afraid to easily raise ex-factory prices.
The core reason is simple: the three major markets for semi-steel tires — exports, OEM original equipment, and replacement markets. Both exports and OEM channels have cooled down, and the replacement market simply cannot support a price hike.
Export bonuses exhausted, EU market plummeted abruptly
Exports were once the main force for the growth of domestic semi-steel tires, growing for consecutive years. However, influenced by the EU anti-dumping investigation on Chinese passenger car tires, exports of semi-steel tires in 2025 declined for the first time in the whole year.
The EU cancelled the preliminary ruling and directly entered the July final ruling, leaving a window period for domestic tire factories. In the first half of 2026, many factories rushed to concentrate shipments to the EU to export more before the final ruling took effect, directly boosting the export data for the first half of the year, with cumulative growth in February increasing year-on-year by 8.42%.
But this early shipment is essentially borrowing from future orders. Once the bonus is gone, the momentum for exports immediately fails to catch up. By July, domestic semi-steel tire exports dropped sharply by 15.76% year-on-year, and cumulative data turned negative directly.
Especially exports to the EU, which dropped 73.70% year-on-year in July! The EU is the most important overseas market for our semi-steel tires; this huge gap cannot be made up by the growth in other regions such as the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Added to the tense situation in the Middle East, doing overseas business is becoming increasingly difficult.
New car sales decline, original equipment orders shrink accordingly
The semi-steel tire OEM market follows passenger car sales completely. Data from the China Passenger Car Association for August: domestic passenger car retail sales were 1.626 million units, down 19% year-on-year; new energy passenger car retail sales were 1.069 million units, down 4% year-on-year. The new car market is clearly weakening, and the original equipment orders for tire procurement by car companies naturally shrank accordingly.
With both exports and OEM channels under pressure, a large amount of production capacity can only return to the domestic replacement market.
Inventory increases while demand remains stagnant, leading to fiercer market competition.
In this situation, who dares to raise prices casually? Once prices are raised, dealers and customers are very likely to switch to competitors.
Profit margins shrink further, industry shake-up accelerates
Raw material prices have been rising all along, but downstream demand cannot accept the price hikes, and profit margins are being eaten away bit by bit.
The downstream sector for heavy-duty tires is freight fleets, which have a higher acceptance of price increases. Coupled with relatively healthy market supply and demand, manufacturers have the confidence to issue collective price hike notices.
In contrast, for semi-steel tires, overseas exports are hindered, domestic new car original equipment is weak, replacement market inventory is high, and competition is fierce. Manufacturers can only bear the cost of rising raw materials themselves.
Summarizing this round of raw material price hikes, the tire industry shows obvious differentiation: heavy-duty tires led the price increase, while semi-steel tires fell into a dilemma of "huge cost increases, weak demand, afraid to raise prices".
EU anti-dumping dealt a heavy blow to exports, domestic new car sales declined, two core channels were frustrated, excess capacity crowded into the replacement market, and the price war cannot stop.
In the short term, it is very difficult for semi-steel tires to raise prices, and corporate profits continue to be under pressure; in the long term, the industry's polarization will become increasingly severe.
Large-scale factories have stronger risk resistance capabilities; those small and medium-sized tire factories that highly rely on exports will have a harder time ahead. The shake-up in the semi-steel track has already begun.
