SPECIALTY AND PERFORMANCE TIRES ACCOUNT FOR 12% OF INDUSTRY RETAIL SALES

Specialty/performance tires often follow the custom wheel market, for when a consumer decides to upgrade the wheels on his or her vehicle, they typically opt to upgrade tires simultaneously. Specialty/performance tires generated an impressive $4.4 billion—12% of the specialty-equipment market's total retail sales—in 2006, according to SEMA research (performance tires are defined as S-rated or higher, 70-series or lower, bad weather-related, etc).

In the last decade, sales of specialty/performance tires nearly doubled, climbing from $2.36 billion in 1996.

For more on the custom wheel and specialty/performance tire market, check out the November 2007 issue of SEMA News, available online here.