With the increasing adoption of radial tire technology across passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, Off-the-Road (OTR) equipment, and two-wheeled vehicles, the use of inner tubes has steadily declined. Currently, their usage is largely confined to specific market segments, such as certain heavy-duty truck tires and two-wheeler tires. Consequently, in the eyes of many within the broader tire industry, the inner tube category may be viewed merely as a "niche segment"-or even as "obsolete production capacity."
However, what many fail to realize is that the inner tube market is also one of the tire industry's sub-sectors most profoundly impacted by the high oil prices resulting from the conflicts in the Middle East. It is understood that butyl rubber-a key raw material for tire inner tubes and rim strips-possesses excellent airtightness and heat resistance.
However, in just the last few months, the price of 1675N-the mainstream grade of butyl rubber in the East China market-has experienced a "vertical surge."
Data from SCI99 (Zhuochuang Information) indicates that its price skyrocketed from approximately 15,100 yuan per ton at the end of February to 33,000 yuan per ton by April 30-a staggering increase of 118.5%.
With raw material prices effectively doubling, costs have far exceeded manufacturers' tolerance thresholds, making price hikes an inevitable necessity. Beyond external supply-side shocks, the inner tube industry itself faces structural dilemmas. With the widespread adoption of all-steel radial tires and tubeless tires in both commercial and passenger vehicle sectors, the market share for traditional bias-ply tires and inner tubes has been squeezed into a tiny niche. A shrinking market also implies a decline in the volume of scrap tires available for recycling. While it may seem like a tangential connection, inner tube production sometimes requires the use of reclaimed rubber-and scrap tires serve as a vital source for this material. Influenced by factors such as logistics costs and environmental regulations, the efficiency of the scrap tire recycling chain has diminished, thereby invisibly driving up production costs for certain types of inner tubes. Furthermore, domestically produced inner tubes enjoy immense popularity in overseas markets. Although the domestic market for inner tubes is steadily contracting, foreign demand remains consistently robust-particularly in developing nations where the rate of tire radialization is not yet high.
Many domestic inner tube factories currently have export orders booked through the second half of the year. As production capacity is increasingly diverted toward exports, the supply-demand balance in the domestic market has become further skewed, and some of this pressure is likely to ripple through the domestic industry chain.
