Correct chernaudi, Michelin purchased the originally American companies BF Goodrich and Uniroyal as Bridgestone have done with Firestone and Continental with General.
If you look into market share in the US(I couldn't find worldwide), GoodYear, Michelin and Bridgestone(and all of their brands) completely dominates the USA's and Canadian markets:
2010-
http://www.moderntiredealer.com/uplo.../mtd-34-35.pdf
2011-
http://www.moderntiredealer.com/uplo...d-28-30-32.pdf
2013 -
http://www.statista.com/statistics/2...united-states/
Michelin is the only non-Japanese tire manufacturer with strong market share in Japan:
http://www.technavio.com/report/pass...ares-2015-2019
GoodYear is relatively weak outside of NA, so that's why they lag behind the other two so much in revenue and R&D expenses.
Anyway, Tire Rack is the biggest retailer worldwide, IIRC, and they have performance tests and consumer reviews of the tires:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/survey...ay.jsp?type=MP
Pretty ridiculous that the
Michelin Pilot Super Sport is superior in each and every aspect: cornering stability, dry traction, tread wear.... etc Also curious how Michelin PS2 is the second best ranked.
Why would anyone buy any other tire in the category "Max Performance Summer" if not for price? It's the best in wet and dry, lowest noise, best ride confort and lowest tread wear. You couldn't market better. The price might be quite huge, though.
No surprise that the top sellers(Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear, Continental) are the best ranked. Pirelli sells more than Hankook but the Korean has better rated tires there.
There is also more tech comparison made by tire rack experts:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...y.jsp?ttid=174
There is even stuff like Average Cornering on Dry (g-Force): Bridgestone Potenza S-04 Pole Position 0.91G, Dunlop Sport Maxx RT 0.92G, Michelin Pilot Super Sport 0.98G and Yokohama ADVAN Sport V105 0.94G and many more