China’s online car sales and maintenance platform Tuhu.cn released on Jan. 27 the Report on Tire Statistics of Tuhu in 2015.
The report shows that Tuhu’s tire sales, as its main business, climbed considerably in 2015. The sales revenue of tires of Tuhu in Dec. 2015 exceeded 120 million yuan, equivalent to a quarter’s sales revenue in 2014.
Ninety percent users of Tuhu.cn are male, middle-aged car owners from 30- to 39-year-old are the majority, followed by those from 20- to 29-year-old.
Most users of Tuhu.cn live in the east coastal regions of China, including 46% in East China, 19% in North China, and 13% in South China.
The location of users is closely linked to Tuhu’s own warehouses. Currently, Tuhu established 17 warehousing and logistics centers, including 12 tire repositories and five maintenance warehouses. The total area of the logistics centers reaches 40,000 square meters with daily outbound delivery quantity of 20,000 tires.
In 2015, Tuhu.cn sold more tires than the third-party platforms, and the sales volume of Tuhu’s App accounted for 40% of the total.
Statistics show that six million users registered in Tuhu.cn and two million people conducted transactions on the site; the Tuhu App had over five million downloads and daily active users were over 200,000.
According to figures released by Talking Data, Tuhu.cn ranked the first in terms of market coverage among auto repairing and maintenance apps from Sep. 2015.
Tuhu made great efforts in developing the tire business in 2015 and 23 mainstream brands are available on the website. Dunlop, Michelin, Goodyear, Bridgestone, and Continental were among the most popular tires in 2015.
Dunlop took the first position in terms of sales volume and accounted for 19% of the total on the site with an 85% positive rating, and the prices ranged from 300 yuan to 600 yuan per unit.
Among the high-end tires, Michelin and Continental with unit price from 500 yuan to 800 yuan were most welcome, and their sales volumes accounted for 16% and 11%, respectively, of the total.
Analysis shows that purchasing power of users in Tuhu is growing and an increasing number of car owners choose to buy tires on Tuhu.cn.
With regard to positive ratings over tread patterns, Dunlop’s SP300 was the most popular one. Notably that Warrior’s R699 outperformed many imported tires and ranked the second position by positive rating, suggesting that China’s indigenous tires have catch up with international products by quality and won consumers’ favor.
Moreover, more A00 –class car owners prefer homemade tires. Tuhu is likely to witness greater business potential in the second- and third-tier cities.
In the meantime, Tuhu may introduce in more high-quality inexpensive homemade tire brands to satisfy the demands of compact car owners.
With increasing tire sales, Tuhu is to enhance the promotion of e-commerce in the second- and third-tier cities, further develop the market potential of China’s homemade tire brands, and more than 5% tires sold in the second- and third-tier cities will be from online platforms.
Tuhu also predicts that in the coming days, more car owners whose vehicles value over 200,000 yuan/unit will enter the e-commerce market, and the e-commerce market of tires may grow over 100% in 2016.
