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Pirelli & C. S.p.A. is an Italian multinational Tire manufacturer based in the city of Milan, Italy. The company, which has been listed on the Borsa Italiana since 1922, is the 5th-largest tyre manufacturer, and is focused on the consumer production of tyres for cars, motorcycles and bicycles. It is present in Europe, the Asia-Pacific, Latin America, North America, and the post-Soviet states, operating commercially in over 160 countries. It has 19 manufacturing sites, across 13 countries, and a network of around 14,600 distributors and retailers.
Pirelli has been sponsoring sport competitions since 1907 and is the exclusive tyre partner and supplier for the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series for 2008–2010, FIA Formula One World Championship for 2011–present and for the FIM World Superbike Championship. Pirelli's headquarters are located in Milan's Bicocca district. Pirelli is now solely a tyre manufacturing company. In the past, it had been involved in fashion and operated in renewable energy and sustainable mobility.
On 4 October 2017, Pirelli returned to the Milan Stock Exchange after focusing its business on pure consumer products (tyres for car, motorcycles, and bicycles) and related services, and separating the business of industrial tyre. Pirelli's Pirelli Calendar has been published since 1964, and has featured the contributions of many famous photographers over the years such as Helmut Newton, Steve McCurry, Peter Lindbergh, Richard Avedon, Bruce Weber, Herb Ritts, and Annie Leibovitz.
In 2015, China National Chemical Corp. Ltd. (ChemChina) took controlling interest of Pirelli; with the Chinese state-owned company agreeing to maintain the tyre company's ownership structure until 2023. In April 2025, the Board of Directors determined that ChemChina control over Pirelli had ended.
In 1974, Pirelli invented the "wide radial tyre", upon a request from the Lancia rally racing team for a tyre strong enough to withstand the power of the new Lancia Stratos. At that time, racing tyres were either made with the cross ply technique (very wide tyres with a reduced sidewall height), or , which were too narrow to withstand the Stratos' power and did not provide enough grip. Both were unusable for the Lancia Stratos, as the radials were destroyed within 10 km, and the slicks too stiff. Lancia asked Pirelli for a solution, and in 1975 Pirelli created a wide tyre with a reduced sidewall height like a slick but with a radial structure. Subsequently, Porsche started using the same tyres with the Porsche 911 Turbo. In 1988, Pirelli acquired the Armstrong Rubber Company, which was headquartered in New Haven, Connecticut, US for $190 million.
In 2000, Pirelli sold its terrestrial fibre optic cables business to Cisco and its optical components operations to Corning, for 5 billion euro. It invested, through Olimpia, part of the resulting liquidity to become a majority shareholder in Telecom Italia in 2001, maintaining this position until 2007. In 2002 the company started a range of Pirelli-branded clothing, watches and eyewear. In 2005, Pirelli sold its Cables, Energy Systems and Telecommunications assets to Goldman Sachs and the newly formed company was named Prysmian Group. In the same year, 2005, Pirelli opened its first tyre production plant in Shandong province, China. This was the beginning of the group's production complex in the country. In 2006, Pirelli chose Slatina for its first tyre production plant in Romania, expanding the facility in 2011.
In 2010, Pirelli completed its conversion to a pure tyre company by selling Pirelli Broadband Solutions and spinning off the real estate assets of Pirelli Re. Fondazione Pirelli was established in the same year to safeguard and celebrate the company's past and to promote business culture as an integral part of Italy's national cultural assets. In March 2015, it was announced that Pirelli shareholders had accepted a €7.1 billion bid from ChemChina, together with Camfin and LTI, for the company. The transaction was completed and the company was delisted in November 2015.
In May 2017, it was announced that Pirelli returns to the world of cycling with a new road cycling tyre range, P ZERO Velo. In September 2017, the company announced its intentions to sell up to 40 per cent of its equity capital in an initial public offering as it plans to return to the Milan stock exchange in October.
In March 2019 Pirelli announced a new range of mountain biking tyres, called Scorpion. In 2021, Pirelli introduced 18-inch tyres for the new aerodynamic and technical changes for 2022 in Formula One. As of May 2024, Pirelli has a market capitalisation of $6.69 billion. On May 29, 2024 Silk Road Fund began the total sale of its shareholding. On May 30, 2024, the share price fell as a result of the sale of the entire stake of Silk Road Fund. While Tronchetti Provera's Camfin strengthened its shareholding together with other Italian investors.
In April 2025, the Board of Directors, in compliance with the Italian government Decreto del Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri 4 agosto 2023 (DPCM) and the IFRS 10 international accounting principle, determined that Sinochem's control over Pirelli had ended.
| Marco Polo International Italy (an intermediate holding company for Sinochem) | 37.0% |
| Institutional Investors | 31.6% |
| Camfin S.p.A. | 26.4% |
| Retail | 5.0% |
| Chairman | Li Fanrong |
| Executive Vice Chairman and CEO | Marco Tronchetti Provera |
| Deputy-CEO | Giorgio Luca Bruno |
| Director | Yang Shihao |
| Director | Wang Feng |
| Independent Director | Paola Boromei |
| Independent Director | Domenico De Sole |
| Independent Director | Roberto Diacetti |
| Independent Director | Fan Xiaohua |
| Independent Director | Giovanni Lo Storto |
| Independent Director | Marisa Pappalardo |
| Independent Director | Tao Haisu |
| Director | Giovanni Tronchetti Provera |
| Independent Director | Wei Yintao |
| Director | Zhang Haitao |
Pirelli's sponsorship of football teams is not limited to Europe, South America is a key market and as a result, successful clubs have also been sponsored by the tyre company. The team Palmeiras, team Peñarol and Argentina side Vélez Sársfield all had Pirelli as a shirt sponsor. When English football club Burton Albion Football Club built their new stadium in 2005, Pirelli became the title sponsor of the new ground. This was because the new stadium, named Pirelli Stadium lies next to the Pirelli factory in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England. In 2009, Pirelli became the title sponsor of the Chinese Super League (CSL), China's top-tier football league. In 2012, the company became a major sponsor of the Russian Cup.
The Italian tyre manufacturer introduced a colour coding system to help identify the tyre compounds used by drivers during races. Each compound has its own colour, which appears on the sidewalls of the tyre. Since the 2019 season, Pirelli has used three colours to identify its dry-weather P Zero tyres: white for hard, yellow for medium, and red for soft. As well as the dry-weather slick tyres, there are two wet-weather grooved tyres: green for the intermediate and blue for the full wet. These tyres are branded Cinturato, a name that dates back to the 1950s. At the start of Pirelli's Formula One tenure in 2011, the company was given the technically challenging task of designing tyres that degraded rapidly in order to promote more pit stops and overtaking, with the aim of making the races more exciting and entertaining. However, the brief from the sport's organisers has changed over the years, as the cars themselves evolved with the introduction of the turbo hybrid era in 2014.
Pirelli has faced controversy on a number of occasions in Formula One, especially during the 2013 British Grand Prix, which featured multiple tyre failures. Pirelli subsequently changed the construction of the tyres to prevent further incidents, switching to Kevlar belts. At the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix, a tyre on Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari suffered from a blowout at . Immediately after the race Pirelli claimed that excessive wear caused the blowout but following a more detailed analysis, the company said that in fact, a cut had caused the tyre failure. A number of major changes to the Formula One tyres were introduced for the 2017 season. The most obvious visual difference was an increase of width by 25%, both front and rear, increasing from 245-mm to 305-mm at the front and 325-mm to 405-mm at the rear. The actual rim size remained unchanged from the traditional 13 inches. The faster cornering speeds as a result of this change imposed significantly increased loads on the tyres. Pirelli was consequently asked to produce tyres with less degradation that were more resistant to overheating, for the fastest cars in Formula One history.
A far-reaching alteration to the Formula One technical regulations for 2022, covering every aspect of the car, prompted another significant change to the tyres. With an imminent move to 18-inch rims after more than 50 years of the 13-inch size, Pirelli's 2022 tyres maintain the same tread width as before, but diameter has increased from 660 millimetres to 720 millimetres. The sidewall height is also reduced to give the tyres a more modern low-profile look. For the new regulations of the 2026 season, Pirelli has changed the coloured rings to a chequered flag themed ring, with the compounds being retained.
Starting from 2027 to 2031 seasons Pirelli will be official sole tyre partner and supplier to MotoGP premier class replacing Michelin after eleven seasons.
Their most recent and popular collaboration has been with German Luxury Car Tuner Mansory. The new collaboration has been showcased to the public at the 2024 Cannes Boat Show and 2024 Genoa Boat Show.
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