Goodway: Strong and Growing Profits

Malaysia’s Goodway Integrated Industries is not just a supplier of tread rubber and rubber compounds for the global retreading industry – the company also manufactures technical rubber compounds. Furthermore, the Malaysian conglomerate is viewed as one of the most expansive companies in the southeast Asian retreading industry, and for a number of years has produced its own retreaded tyres – products that have given the firm a domestic retreading market share of about 75 per cent. And Goodway’s growth within the region continues to this day; in 2005, Goodway acquired the leading Malaysian market retreader, Big Wheel. Through this purchase Goodway became a major customer to its own products and also entered the OTR tyre retreading industry.

Since last March Goodway has also operated its own giant OTR retread production site. At this facility Goodway has the capability to retread tyres up to 57 inches in diameter in a pre-cure process; 62-inch tyres will follow soon. This new production site in Nilai primarily supplies mines in Australia. It services about 50 mines, says Goodway CEO Tai Boon Wee. And in each of these mines there are about 500 OTR tyres awaiting retreading. Although at the moment monthly production capacity at Nilai is still limited to about 30 large OTR tyres, this will soon change. As the CEO announced during an interview, monthly production capacity will increase up to 100 retreads, which will be sold under Goodway’s “Tough Treads” OTR retread brand name. So far the company has invested about 1.5 million euros into the new Nilai facility. As the CEO continues, these investment costs will have been paid off within just two years of operation.
Although the demand from Australia is enormous, there is currently no need to install a Goodway production site in that country, says Mr Tai. By holding back from taking such a step, the company can assure that its retreading technology will remain exclusive to Goodway for a little while longer. However demand is such that the company has even received enquiries from Australian mine operators who are interested in establishing their own retreading facility under a Goodway license.

It will be the OTR tyre market in particular that will help the Malaysian market leader further increase its profitability in the course of the current financial year, the CEO announces. He adds that net profits will, this year, grow way above 10 per cent.
A recent boost to Goodway came in the form of last August’s purchase of Autoways, a smaller Malaysian manufacturer of retreading material and retreads. And on top of that, the company has also installed a retreading facility in China, fully equipped with Goodway retreading equipment; the company also offers full retreading plants and retreading systems. “Our factory will be in a position to produce high quality retreaded tyres in an efficient way. It will be a model factory for the local [Chinese] industry,” Mr Tai concluded.