Michelin Aims to Penetrate Malaysian Original Equipment Market

Michelin Malaysia is aiming to increase its market share in the region by penetrating the original equipment market.Michelin Malaysia Sdn Bhd general manager Ronald Sutadja hopes Michelin’s strong carmakers such as Toyota Motor Corp and DaimlerChrysler AG, will support this strategy. Outside Malaysia Michelin is OE supplier for Toyota Camry and Mercedes-Benz E-Class, among others, he told the Malaysian Business Times

“We are now starting to penetrate into the OE market in Malaysia,” Sutadja told reporters at a briefing on Michelin’s campaign to help lessen the burden of fuel price rises in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. The campaign features Michelin’s Green X technology applied on its Energy range of tyres, which it claims can reduce vehicle emission and cut tyre-related fuel consumption by 5 per cent.

Michelin currently controls about 20 per cent of the replacement market for big-sized cars such as Toyota Camry, up to 14 per cent of the mid-sized non-national cars such as Honda City and Honda Civic and 5 per cent of mid-sized national cars such as Proton Wira, the newspaper reported.

“Up to 25 per cent of the total fuel in a vehicle’s tank is used to run the tyres, and lower rolling resistance directly lead to lower fuel consumption and reduced vehicle emissions,” Sutadja added.