Kplus 30 Boosts Kraiburg’s Sales

One year after being launched, the high-performance Kplus 30 special compound tyres from Kraiburg Austria are successfully established on the market. Of the 11,000 tonnes of precured treads, that the company sold in Europe, 1,500 tonnes were notched up by the premium range Kraiburg plus, representing a remarkable 13 per cent of total sales.

In Germany, the pre-cured Kplus 30 currently generates eight per cent of sales. That brings the current overall market share of Kraiburg plus to two per cent in the core market of precured tyres. In conjunction with its twelve authorised retreading partners, who together cover more than 50 per cent of the Kraiburg precured retreading market, Kraiburg is planning to gradually further exploit the existing market potential in Germany. Three months ago Kraiburg welcomed a new, strong partner: Feneberg, a company based in Kempten, Germany. With 16 locations, the plant in the Alpine region of Allgäu now covers the entire southwest.

The Czech market is so far the biggest success for Kraiburg plus: Just under 30 per cent of all precured Kraiburg treads sold there, equivalent to the material requirements for 19,000 large tyres for trucks, feature the distinctive yellow stripe of the premium range. Kraiburg plus thus has a sizeable seven-per-cent market share of all precured tyres sold in the country. Besides Germany and the Czech Republic, Kraiburg plus premium tyres are sold mainly in Poland, Sweden, France, Denmark, Italy, Slovenia and Switzerland.

According to Kraiburg, after one year, the top sellers of its current total of 22 tread patterns are the Kraiburg plus urban traffic treads KDE2, KDA2e, KDR and KTE2, as well as the off-road patterns KSD and KDY3. “In choosing Kplus 30 tyres, users are demonstrating an obvious preference for established tread designs,” said Frank Gregory, Kraiburg Austria regional sales manager for Central Europe. “That makes Kraiburg plus anything but a niche product. Designs for specific areas of use are less important.”

For Kraiburg, the popularity of its mixed application tread designs is clear proof that demand for premium tyres exists even in a field of application dominated by cheap tyres. For example, the huge popularity of the KDY3 shows that the success of Kplus 30 is due not only to its modern tread design, but also due to the qualities of the high-performance compound. The popular KDY3 has a proven track record, having already performed outstandingly for months under extreme conditions in the marble quarries of Carrara in Tuscany.

But haulage companies working in some of the toughest quarries in the world are not the only ones to place their trust in Kraiburg and its more than 55 years of expert know-how; other reference customers include the cities of Copenhagen and Prague, both of which deploy the tyres for their public bus systems. And for long-distance haulage, major freight forwarders like Germany’s Hinterberger and Jihotrans in the Czech Republic both rely on Kraiburg’s expertise and quality. Regardless of the area of application, all of the company’s customers of course appreciate the cost advantage resulting from their use of Kplus 30 premium tyres. Thanks to the high-performance compound, tyre operating costs can be cut demonstrably by up to 30 per cent.

“The development of our premium range Kraiburg plus proves that the market has room for a premium segment and that there’s a demand for high-performance products”, Frank Gregory explained. “The purchase price is apparently not the key factor, as long as their use is profitable overall.” Part of the reason Kraiburg is pleased that the focus is on premium quality is the dramatic rise in the price of natural rubber, which naturally exerts a decisive influence on the total price of the high-quality tyre compound. However, the best raw materials available are the prerequisite for making a high-performance brand like Kraiburg plus.

“The goal for our premium line is quite clearly to expand market share in Europe,” Frank Gregory continued. “Above all, we make out further potential in Germany and we want to move ahead in the long-distance segment.” That is why the retreading specialist is already at work on a new Kplus 30 compound with even higher mileage potential, with a launch planned for 2007.