Is Hankook a premium tire brand?: For the last 30 years, the tire industry has been dominated by big players such as Michelin, Bridgestone, Continental , Goodyear & Pirelli. The tire brands mentioned are hugely popular among consumers and chances that you have used one of them before. With the recent publication of the world’s leading tire manufacturers chart, Hankook is now in the top 6 replacing Pirelli from the 2019 ranking.
What does premium means? In my opinion, to be considered as a premium tire manufacturer , you got to have best in class products. This could be generated through press test wins or market feedback. The consumer who chooses your brand have the utmost confidence that your products are on a certain level which is reflecting your premium status. So with this in mind, lets have a closer look on Hankook and whether it deserves the title of a “premium” manufacturer.
Press test results
| Comfort | Touring | UHP | UUHP | All season | Winter | Nordic stud | Nordic soft | |||
| Hankook | Kinergy Eco2 K435 | Ventus Prime 3 K125 | Ventus S1 evo3 K127 | Ventus R-S4 Z232 | Kinergy 4S 2 H750 | Winter i*cept RS2 W452 | Winter i*Pike RS2 W429 | Winter i*cept iZ 2 W616 | ||
| 1st | 1/5 | 0/18 | 0/13 | 1/1 | 2/11 | 0/11 | 0/8 | 0/5 | 4/72 | 0.06 |
| 2nd | 0/5 | 0/18 | 0/13 | 0/1 | 0/11 | 2/11 | 0/8 | 0/5 | 2/72 | 0.03 |
The table above shows the overall performances of Hankook current tire line up in press test settings. They managed a 6% win rate while their best performing tires is the all season segment Kinergy 4S 2 H750 with 2 wins under its belt. From our previous comparison against other premium manufacturers, most of the top manufactures have a win rate of >18%. Apart from Pirelli which has not won any press test win for its current tire line up, Hankook’s performance was off the “premium” standard.
Summary
Overall, Hankook’s press performance was better than Pirelli but far off the average wins of the top 4 manufacturers. It might have the revenue to be in the top 6 tire manufacturer of the world but from a product stand point, they still have a lot of work to be done.