With significantly less than 1% of the total UK replacement market, the market for cold weather tyres is still a very small niche within the whole market. However, it is an area, which is currently experiencing significant growth thanks to the renewed efforts of the tyre industry to raise awareness and to highlight the safety benefits of switching to cold weather tyres in the winter months.

Estimates based on Europool figures and published by the tyre industry specialist magazine Tyre & Accessories suggest that cold weather tyre sales increased by around 15% per year between 2003 and 2005 but may have achieved a huge increase from around 54,000 units to around 120,000 units during 2006, this being achieved despite mild winter weather in recent years.

Although the market is still small, some industry experts are predicting that the market for cold weather tyres could eventually rise to as much as 3 million units per year. This optimism is based, to a degree on spectacular success achieved in the Netherlands by their trade association, VACO, who managed to work together with the tyre industry to create a market for cold weather tyres by running an active campaign together with tyre dealers to promote the safety benefits of changing over to cold weather tyres in the winter. The result was to achieve a market share of around 15% from almost nothing within only a few years. With winter road conditions in Holland being similar to most of the UK, the assumption has been that it might be possible to achieve similar results here.

The main barrier to the growth of the winter tyre market in the UK has been the assumption on the part of both consumers and tyre dealers, that winter tyres are only necessary in snow and, because most of the UK receives only a minimal snow covering, they are not necessary in the UK. The tyre industry has therefore changed the emphasis from "winter tyres" to "cold weather tyres", emphasising the performance improvements that such tyres can provide at temperatures under 7 centigrade.

It seems that the message is now getting through but still only relatively slowly. The majority of British tyre dealers do still not stock cold weather tyres or can get them only to special order. If the market continues to grow, though, this may well change in the medium term.