Yokohama CEO sets out plans for acquired Goodyear OTR business

Hiratsuka, Japan – Yokohama Rubber Co. (YRC) plans to revise the production allocation and network of the former Goodyear OTR business following its acquisition earlier this year.

In its integrated report 2025, issued 30 Sept, YRC chairman and CEO Masataka Yamaishi said the acquired business had “a wide-ranging product lineup, but it also had high-cost plants in North America and Europe.”

Moreover, YRC noted that Goodyear had not viewed the OTR tire operations as a core business and, so, had not made investments required to develop the business. 

“As a result, the business was not profitable,” said Yamaishi, adding that post-merger integration will include “necessary revisions to the business’ production allocation and production network.”

According to the YRC chief executive, the Japanese group planned revisions are expected to improve cost competitiveness across the acquired operations.

Yamaishi went on to comment on the OTR market, which covers tires for agricultural machinery, mining & construction vehicles, port-use vehicles, and industrial vehicles.

Demand, he said, is “more susceptible to economic fluctuations than in the passenger car tire market, and the number of tire sizes is high relative to the size of their markets.”

According to the YRC leader, such conditions create high barriers to entry, leading “more than a few major tire makers” to withdraw from the business.

Through a series of acquisitions – starting with ATG in 2016, TWS in 2023, and most recently Goodyear’s OTR business – YRC said it has turned the segment into a “highly profitable ‘blue ocean’" business.

The acquisition "has given us a broader product lineup that will enable us to improve production and sales efficiency as we implement a strategy to be the ‘best alternative’ to our competitors,” the CEO added.