Triangle Tyre Co. – Aiming For The Top 10

The history of the Triangle Tyre Co. Ltd goes back three decades, when the Weihai Tire Factory opened a plant in Weihai, Shandong Province, China. In 1997 it changed its name and began trading as Triangle Tyre Co; part of the Triangle Group of companies. Since then the company has grown rapidly and it is now aiming at nothing less than being a top 10 player in the global tyre market.

Triangle is currently one of the top 500 companies in China and employs 6,300 staff. Depending on which criteria you use, Triangle is the 12th, 13th or 14th largest tyre manufacturer in the world – not bad for such a young company. The turnover last year was US$980 million and has risen by 50 per cent in the past three years.

The product range is comprehensive, covering 110 sizes of radial tyres with 500 varieties and over 100 sizes of bias ply tyres with 400 varieties. The sectors covered are passenger car, truck, OTR tyres, industrial, agricultural and desert tyres and the annual production capacity is 11 million units, eight million of which are radial tyres.

Triangle recognises the importance of both innovation and quality; the former is catered for by the company’s own Technical R&D Centre, post-doctorate Research Working Station and numerous collaboration projects with institutes of learning and scientific research institutions, as well as design organisations. The quality programmes introduced by Triangle have led to the company being awarded ISO 9001 quality accreditation, ISO 14001 environmental accreditation, plus QS-9000 quality system and ISO 10012 measurement system. Triangle tyres are DOT- and E-marked and carry the CCC Chinese approval mark.

Original equipment

This emphasis on quality has led to Triangle tyres being chosen as OE options by over 40 vehicle and engineering machinery manufacturers. Some, such as China Heavy Duty Truck Corp. and Shanghai Automobile Corp., are obviously predominantly domestic market suppliers, but others like Caterpillar, John Deere and Volvo, are world-famous brands. In all, Triangle tyres are available in more than 100 countries and regions outside China on the replacement market.

Triangle is nothing if not ambitious; the company’s stated aim is to become “an advanced world enterprise” and to make the brand known across the globe. In order to achieve this, the group is working at perfecting its market network system and concentrating on improvements on the technological and scientific side. Triangle also says that it is implementing a strategy “to diversify capital investment, internationalise business and modernise management” which the company hopes will enable it to grow significantly. The goal is for Triangle to become one of the top 10 international enterprises in the global tyre industry – an ambitious challenge indeed, but with its track record of growth, with the domestic market continuing to expand rapidly and with Triangle constantly on the lookout to increase its presence in export markets, it would be a brave man who would bet against it.

TYM International and Triangle

Increasing its presence on the world’s export markets is a priority for Triangle and a good example of how it is choosing to do this is the UK, where the company’s tyres are imported by Kirkby Tyres and King’s Lynn-based TYM International.

TYM is the only company in the UK to sign a three-year deal with Triangle (beginning in 2007), plus TYM has been assigned the import rights to the Czech and Slovak Republics, as well as Russia.

This year, Triangle celebrated its 30th anniversary and Steve Eke, of TYM International, was invited to Weihi to join in the celebrations and to look round the new factory. This factory produces a variety of tyres, including radial earthmover in sizes up to 29.5 R25, plus the plan is to manufacture 14 million passenger car radials next year and 17 million the year after, as part of Triangle’s ambitious plans for growth.

As well as celebrating the company’s anniversary – an event marked by a speech from Triangle’s Chairman Mr. Ding and the release of thousands of balloons – the occasion saw the formalisation of an OE contract with Caterpillar for the supply of Triangle tyres – initially in size 23.5 R25 and with other sizes to be added during the year. TYM International was awarded the contract for the warranty and replacement for all OE tyres across Europe.

One of the potential problems in dealing with suppliers from the Far East is long delivery times, but TYM envisages no such difficulty, saying that even OTR tyres can normally be supplied in eight weeks.