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News - BridgestoneBridgestone Australia charts growth strategyDouble-digit retail and e-commerce growth plus new car service business underpin plans12 Aug 2025 By TOM BAKER DESPITE challenges including an influx of Chinese-manufactured tyres and the fact Australia’s overall vehicle fleet is not substantially growing year-on-year, Japanese tyre manufacturer Bridgestone expects strong business growth to continue.
Behind the scenes, Bridgestone is spending big to bolster its product development, logistics pipeline and end-of-life sustainability efforts, while the Australian arm is helping its Tokyo-based head office win big new original equipment (OE) deals through heavy-duty Australian tyre testing.
On the surface, Bridgestone, which is expected to produce at least 150 million tyres in 2025, is expanding and changing the nature of its retail offer with 10 per cent of sales through its own distributors now taking place online.
“We have a growth strategy – particularly our family channel footprint, and making sure we are where customers need us,” Bridgestone Australia and New Zealand managing director Heath Barclay told GoAuto.
“(Our) e-commerce growth is 30 per cent year on year, and our retail business is growing at double digits,” said Mr Barclay, noting the 550 Bridgestone Select around the country – of which all bar half a dozen are franchises or dealers.
While tyres purchased online are then fitted via an in-store appointment, Bridgestone marketers are interested in a clear trend suggesting that online buyers tend to choose a more premium (and expensive) tyre outside the pressure of a physical environment.
“Consumers are buying a more premium tyre online because they feel educated about the features and benefits of those tyres and are tending to trade up,” said Bridgestone general manager of marketing David Honner.
While Bridgestone owns a considerably larger share of its retail footprint in New Zealand, the Australian arm is not open to greater equity investment in stores.
“Our model is mainly franchised and dealership and that’s because we want to be able to invest our capital into the digital experience, technology we need and product development,” said Mr Barclay.
Bridgestone intends to increase its Select vehicle servicing business, however, with Mr Barclay reflecting that the relatively stable number of vehicles on Australian roads means selling more and more tyres every year is a difficult path to growth.
“There is a look at how we provide customers with more servicing capability than we did 15 or 20 years ago, and making sure customers have a (tyre) choice across all of the price points,” he said.
The manufacturer also owns the Lube Mobile business in Australia.
But while Bridgestone offers sub-brands at lower prices, including Dayton, Supercat and Firestone in Australia, there is a clear intent to avoid bargain-basement pricing and positioning versus cheaper Chinese tyres.
“There is a large volume of Chinese-manufactured tyres that come into Australia and New Zealand. It is probably around 50 per cent,” said Mr Barclay.
“In reality, this just means we need to continue to innovate, develop our products to meet customers’ needs, and stay ahead in technology, be customer-orientated, and that is the battle.
“We hit most of the price points that consumers are looking for, but we are not going to compromise safety and go down to a level where we make an unsafe product just to hit a price point.”
Bridgestone’s reasonable grip on the premium end of the replacement tyre market in Australia is holding up via valuable deals with corporate fleet managers, including SG Fleet, Custom Fleet and Oryx.
However, the Australian arm – which employs 10-15 technical field service personnel and regularly hosts delegations of tyre engineers from Bridgestone HQ in Japan – is also helping the firm win new OE business.
That includes a “prestigious” deal with Toyota for a forthcoming LandCruiser product that will wear off-road focussed Bridgestone tyres.
“With the likes of Toyota, sometimes we will do testing with them for their platforms, or we will do testing as the vehicles and tyres are being developed, and we’ll bring in tyres and test them against (Australian) conditions,” said Mr Barclay.
While Australians are shifting their preferences towards SUVs and battery electric vehicles with large wheels and tyres, the long-lasting presence of smaller vehicles in the national fleet also creates a logistics challenge that favours scale.
To that end, Bridgestone in July added a new 23,000 square-metre warehouse in Queensland to support network expansion and growth in tyre volumes, particularly in the northeast part of Australia.
Capturing return customers more reliably via an SMS notification program is also a priority for Mr Honner’s marketing team.
Work is ongoing on various end-of-life recycling programs, and Bridgestone head of sustainability Jo Hayes told GoAuto all of the brand’s stores are required to utilise Tyre Stewardship Australia accredited recyclers, which audit compliance.
“All of our channels use those and they go into other means like crumb for roads, flooring, devulcanized rubber, or they can be used for tyre derived fuel, which is a coal replacement,” Ms Hayes said.
Complying (and being seen to comply) with recycling strategies is a key goal for Bridgestone, but Mr Barclay revealed it will be a cost centre for the foreseeable future, knocking back a suggestion that customers could receive a rebate for recycling their old tyres when buying new ones.
“At the moment, end markets can’t support (paying customers) and the technology can’t support value at the end of their life,” he said.
“It is a cost for us to transport (tyres) to a recycler. It would be a lovely end point for us where there is enough value extracted at the end that we can actually provide an amount to the customer.”  Read more |
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