Tuesday, February 24, 2009 All Season Tires, Still the Most Popular
 According to the Rubber Manufacturers Association’s (RMA) latest numbers, all-season tires were still the most popular in consumer sales in 2008. But first, in a general sense, here is a breakdown of how sales went for most tire makers:
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Passenger tires
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Light trucks
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Major brands
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78 %
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76 %
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Associate brands
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10 %
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10 %
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Private brands
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12 %
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14 %
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Of all these sales, some 74% of them were tires with all-season tread compared to 77% in 2007. As far as performance tires are concerned, they are still identified as H, V, and Z (including W and Y) ratings and they represented a total of 50.8 million sales. H-rated tires were the most popular with 29.7 million sales (which represents 58.8% of all HP/UHP deliveries), while 10.7 million V-rated tires were delivered (21% of total HP/UHP sales). Z-rated (including W and Y) products figured at 10.4 million sales (20.5% of HP/UHP sales). RMA also reports that V-rated tires were more popular than H-rated with OE with 5.5 million units against 5.2 million units. UHP tires (Z, W, Y) represented 1.4 million deliveries to OEs. (ED)
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