Continental confirmed its plan to sell its ContiTech business group in a June 24 press release.
The company plans to sell the rubber and plastics division of ContiTech in 2026, following the spin-off of its automotive group in September and the sale of its automotive rubber parts branch later in 2025.
The sale of ContiTech is another move toward Continental specializing solely on its core tire business, a plan the company has discussed for more than a year as volatile markets and electrification threaten its automotive and parts sectors.
“For the first time in its history, Continental will become a pure-play tire manufacturer focused on value creation, profitability, cash flow and stable business development,” Continental CEO Nikolai Setzer said at the company’s Capital Market Day in Germany last week.
The company has taken several recent steps toward a more streamlined business structure.
“[F]lexible, focused companies can capitalize on opportunities better than complex organizations,” Setzer said at Continental’s annual meeting in April.
The company initially proposed the plan to separate the automotive group from Continental last August, with Setzer explaining that fluctuating markets and the rise of automotive software required business model shifts. Continental announced in April that the automotive group would become an independent company known as Aumovio, with an IPO scheduled for September.
The company’s executive board considered making ContiTech an independent company as well, but it ultimately decided to sell the sector. There were discussions of selling at least the automotive parts division of ContiTech as early as August 2023.
While market volatility has impacted sales of parts and automotive technology solutions, the tire business at Continental “has shown stable development in recent years,” the June press release said. The company’s tire sector employs more than 57,000 people and reported sales of 13.9 billion euros ($16.3 billion) in 2024.
Continental is already one of the top global tire manufacturers, ranking as the fourth largest tire maker in 2024 according to trade journal Tire Business. But unlike other top tire manufacturers that focus primarily on tires, Continental’s tire business represented just over a third of the company’s total revenues in 2024. Continental expects future growth in its tires sector, with the greatest potential in North America and Asia, the company said.
“[W]e believe becoming solely focused on tires will make us more agile,” Allison Zora, head of PR and brand communications for Continental’s replacement tires business in the Americas region, said in an email. “Amid geopolitical uncertainty and shifting supply chains, the capacity to adapt quickly is a vital source of competitive strength.”
