Tire sale rises 7.5% in the quarter, says Anip

Despite the decline in the production of cars, sales of Brazilian industry of tyres advanced 7.5 percent in the first quarter, thanks to the increase in consumption of tires of trucks and vans-in the wake of record agricultural harvest-, along with positive also in the performance aftermarket.
In total, 12.45 million tires were sold in the first two months of this year. Of this total, 1.5 million are tires for cargo vehicles, a segment in which the evolution of sales was 19.1%. The supply of tires to automakers of passenger cars-where the production is down this year-fell 15.6 percent in the quarter, but this result was offset by the high of 19.8% of sales in the aftermarket.
Thus, in the two months, sales of tires for passenger cars grew by 3.4%, from 6 million units. The figures were released by the Anip, entity of domestic manufacturers of tires, which reported advance still 9.4% of production in the sector, to 11.7 million tires within two months. The result was also influenced by the start-up of operations of Sumitomo's factory in Parana, in addition to the high of 2.8% of exports, which reached close to 2.3 million units until February.