Michelin

Michelin is a French tyre and engineered-materials group. In FY2025 it reported sales of €25,992m, segment operating income of €2,719m (10.5% of sales) and a net income of €1,664m, with 122,600 employees on the payroll at 31 December 2025. From the first quarter of 2026 the group reports four segments: Consumer, Transportation, Specialties and Polymer Composite Solutions.

Reference data

Executive Summary

Michelin’s 2025 was a volume year, not a price year. Group sales fell 4.4% to €25,992m as tyre volumes declined 4.7%, and segment operating income fell 19.5% to €2,719m, taking the segment margin from 12.4% to 10.5%. The group attributes more than 80% of the volume decline to Original Equipment markets — principally truck and agricultural tyres in North America — and the operating consequence was fixed-cost under-absorption in plants that had been sized for a larger market. Price and mix added €745m against a €719m volume drag and a €228m raw-material headwind, so the shortfall is an absorption story rather than a pricing one.

The shape of the year differed sharply by segment. Consumer and two-wheel held an 11.7% margin on sales down 2.5%, helped by mix: 18-inch and larger MICHELIN-brand passenger car tyres reached 68% of MICHELIN-brand car tyre sales, three points higher than 2024. Transportation was the pressure point, with sales down 8.7%, volumes down 8.8% and the margin halving to 4.7% in a North American truck market the group describes as having shrunk 20% after manufacturers stockpiled Class 8 trucks. Specialties earned 13.5%, its beyond-road OE exposure offset by growth in mining and aircraft tyres.

2026 has been a stabilisation year. Nine-month revenue of €19,175m was 0.5% lower on a reported basis but 1.0% higher at constant exchange rates, with a 2.2% constant-currency increase in the third quarter, and the Polymer Composite Solutions acquisitions turned that segment from €942m to €1,149m. Volume guidance was trimmed in October 2026 with no fourth-quarter rebound assumed, while the segment operating income and free cash flow guidance was confirmed.

Company Overview

Business description

Michelin manufactures tyres and sells related distribution and services. The tyre business spans passenger car and light truck, two-wheel, truck and bus, and the “beyond-road” categories of agricultural, construction, materials-handling, mining and aircraft tyres, alongside retreads and a portfolio of owned brands positioned from premium downward. Distribution is a material part of the model rather than an adjunct: each reporting segment consolidates “and related distribution”, comprising integrated and franchised dealership networks supplemented by digital retail.

Beyond tyres, the group is building two adjacent activities that it discloses separately. MICHELIN Connected Fleet sells telematics and fleet-management services. Polymer Composite Solutions applies the group’s materials expertise to coated fabrics, sealing technology, conveyor belting and engineered components for industrial, aerospace, defence, medical and energy customers — the activity that became a fourth reporting segment in 2026.

Organisational structure and footprint

Financial Performance

Key financial highlights

Revenue breakdown

On the restated four-segment basis for 2025, Consumer is 55% of group sales and 62% of segment operating income; Transportation is 23% of sales but only 10% of profit; Specialties contributes 17% of sales and 21% of profit; and Polymer Composite Solutions is 5% of sales and 7% of profit at the highest margin in the group. Tyre and related-distribution sales together were €24,747m, or 95.21% of the group total, with €1,245m coming from non-tyre polymer composites.

Profitability analysis

The 2025 decline in segment operating income (−€659m) decomposes almost exactly into volume loss against price and mix gain. Volumes removed €719m, price added €365m and mix added €380m, with higher raw-material costs taking a further €228m in the first part of the year before easing in the second half. The mix gain is the part of the model the group controls: 18-inch and larger MICHELIN-brand tyres, premium brand positioning and a managed balance between Replacement and Original Equipment.

Latest nine months and financial position

Nine-month 2026 revenue of €19,175m was 0.5% below the prior year as reported, held back by a €300m (−1.6%) currency effect concentrated in the first half. At constant exchange rates revenue grew 1.0%, and at constant exchange rates and scope 0.1%. Scope added 0.9% (€179m) from the Cooley Group and Flexitallic acquisitions in the first half and TexTech from 1 July 2026, partly offset by the 2025 divestment of the compact line activities. Tire volumes were 0.8% lower overall, but MICHELIN-brand replacement volumes were up 4% at the end of September.

SWOT Analysis

Recent Developments

Strategic moves

Financial developments

Business Strategy

Global strategy

Michelin in Motion 2030, presented in 2021 and still the group’s stated framework, commits Michelin to targeted growth in tyres while building two adjacent activities — connected solutions and polymer composite materials — that are intended to represent between 20% and 30% of turnover by 2030. The operational logic is that tyres fund and validate the materials and data capabilities, and that those capabilities earn higher margins and less cyclical demand than the tyre cycle itself. The strategy sits inside an “All-sustainable” framework measured on twelve social, societal, financial and environmental indicators.

Focus-market strategy

At market level the group is running two different plays at once. In Consumer it protects price and mix and accepts volume loss in Tier 2 and Tier 3 brands rather than chase low-priced imports, which is why a 1.0% revenue decline came with a 0.5% volume increase over nine months of 2026. In Transportation it has launched a comprehensive adaptation plan covering industrial capacity, faster product-range renewal and connected solutions — a response to a North American truck market that shrank 20% in 2025 and where the recovery is now arriving through Class 8 orders rather than through replacement demand. In Specialties the growth is where the cycle is: mining and aircraft, not agriculture or construction.

What the Pheonix base adds

Michelin does not publish its share of the global tyre market, and the denominators available to it and to us are not the same. On our own base — the Pheonix Global Tyres Market Report, 2026–2033, which sizes the market at US$525.4bn in 2025 rising to US$742.8bn by 2033 at a 4.4% CAGR — Michelin’s €24,747m of tyre and related-distribution sales convert to roughly US$26,727m and imply about 5.1% of that pool.

The comparability note matters more than the number. Michelin’s sales are recorded at manufacturer and distributor selling prices; our market base is a value pool that includes the distribution and retail layers the group consolidates only partially. The two are not the same measurement, and the 5.1% should be read as a share of a broader value pool than the group’s own revenue address — which is why it sits below the ten-point-plus shares some sources attribute to the group on narrower replacement-tyre bases.

Sources

1. Michelin, Financial information at December 31, 2025, 11 February 2026 — michelin.com
2. Michelin, 2025 Universal Registration Document and 2025 annual results guide — consolidated income statement, segment analysis, employee data
3. Michelin, Restatement of 2025 segment reporting after creation of the Polymer Composite Solutions reporting segment, January 2026
4. Michelin, Financial information for the nine months ended September 30, 2026, 20 October 2026
5. Michelin, Q3 2026 pre-close call script for sell-side analysts, 1 October 2026 — tyre market ranges and supply-chain commentary
6. Michelin, Michelin in Motion 2030 strategy page — portfolio targets, EV homologations, materials targets
7. Michelin, Analyst consensus, last updated 9 October 2026 — FY2026 sales and segment operating income consensus
8. Reuters, Michelin profit hit by US slowdown, sees rebound in 2026, 11 February 2026 — consensus comparison
9. Tire Review, Michelin 2025 Earnings and Financial Results, 13 February 2026 — reported dollar equivalents
10. 20 Minutes / AFP, Michelin: le plan prévoyant 1 500 départs volontaires sur trois ans entériné par plusieurs syndicats, 13 November 2026 — French headcount and site count, GEPP terms
11. auto.news, Drittes Quartal stabilisiert Neunmonatszahlen von Michelin, 23 October 2026 — sale of the Karlsruhe site to Aurelis
12. Pheonix Research, Global Tyres Market Report, Size and Forecast 2026–2033 — US$525.4bn (2025) to US$742.8bn (2033), 4.4% CAGR
13. Wikidata, Q151107 — entity identity verified 13 November 2026

Provenance

This profile is bound to Wikidata entity Q151107 and to Pheonix graph entity MIEN-node_b3a98f14. All company figures are taken from Michelin’s own reported results for FY2023–FY2025 and for the nine months ended 30 September 2026, restated onto the four-segment basis the group adopted in January 2026. Market-size inputs are from Pheonix Research’s own tyre market model and are used only in the implied-share illustration, which is labelled as such. Identity, segment structure and all figures last verified on 13 November 2026.