UK Winter Segment Continues Steady, if Unspectacular, Growth: Marketers increase distinction between snow and cold weather

摘要

Tyres & Accessories continues its winter preview tradition this year by noting that the UK's cold weather tyre market has indeed increased steadily once again in 2007. However, proportionally-speaking, T&As research shows that the winter sector of the passenger tyre market took an impressive leap up to 0.8 per cent [source: GfK Retail and Technology) in October-December 2007, based on sell-out data. This movement came from a figure closer to the 0.1 per cent mark for previous year-round, sell-in figures. Admittedly, this is the period in which one would expect to see winter tyres spike, but the degree of their rise suggests more, especially when viewed alongside the spike in actual sales recorded in 2006 (see T&A 9/2007). Perhaps these figures represent the stirring of the cold weather tyre market in the UK. Perhaps this is the year that will see the new beginning that tyre marketers crave while repeating over and over, "not snow tyres - cold weather tyres!"