OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. Whenever people reference OEM in regards to Car Parts, they are talking about the True or Genuine Original Parts which were installed at the New Car Factory. The global automotive industry for New Cars, Trucks, & SUV's is enormous, we are talking around 2.5 trillion dollars, yes, with a "T". This is overall revenue or sales. The USA has a big chunk of global sales at around 600 billion dollars, with a "B". Americans are a huge player in over sales dollars of new cars and trucks, about 25% of worldwide new car sales...we love our cars! When you add all the New Car Parts Sales to New Car Vehicle Sales, the overall number comes close to doubling. Current estimates for the Entire Automotive Industry Revenue for 2023 is around 4.3 trillion dollars, wow! Again, the USA has a very big chunk of this, at around 1.5 trillion dollars, or 35% of the worldwide total combination of New Cars and New Car Parts revenue. These are huge numbers and tough to get your head around, but I think it's important to get a feel for how big the auto industry is and how many thousands and thousands of new car part manufacturers contribute to the overall industry.
Ok, let's do a quick analysis of the Car Wheel or Rim Industry. Global Car Wheel Revenue in 2023 is around 40 billion. North America accounts for a little over half of the total sales. However, the Asia Pacific Region produces about half of the automotive rims with countries like China and India being huge players in the industry. With very cheap materials and labor costs, this region has boomed over the last 20 years in wheel manufacturing. Also, this region has become much more developed and capable of meeting the Car Manufactures strict specifications for quality OEM Wheels. Of the 40 billion total sales dollars of Auto Rims sold in 2023, about 35 billion are Genuine OEM - So these are the Original or Stock Wheels installed at the Auto Manufacturing Plants all over the world. The remaining 5 billion is attributed to the Aftermarket Industry. These are often referred to as "Custom Rims or Wheels". They are not Genuine OEM and come in tons of different styles and colors. Finish Line Wheels sells only the Genuine OEM Car Rims, we do not get into the Aftermarket Custom Rims. Nothing will fit and perform on your car like True Original Factory Rims made for you car.
Hope this gives you a better understanding of the size of the overall wheel industry along with the how crazy big the entire automotive industry is. While researching this I was even blown away and I've been selling wheels for nearly 20 years! We will be following up with a new article soon going more in depth on the differences between OEM Wheels (Genuine Factory installed), Replica Wheels (OEM Knockoffs), and Aftermarket Wheels (Custom). Thanks for reading and please leave some comments.