Yokohama’s Brazil, Thailand Operations Get Under Way

Yokohama Rubber and Yokohama Europe have jointly established a company for the development of tyre sales and marketing in South America. The new subsidiary, Yokohama Rubber Latin America Comercio Ltda., was set up in April in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and began operations in May. Approximately 1.1 million Brazil reals (US$600,000 US) have been invested into the company.

The decision to establish a business base in Brazil was prompted by the company’s recent strong tyre sales within this region; tyre sales volume here has grown almost four-fold in the five years to 2007, says Yokohama. The company will place a particular emphasis on promoting its high performance passenger car tyres, and will conduct market research into the possibility of localising the Latin America tyre business.

With the establishment of the new company, Yokohama Rubber closes its representative office in Panama.

The company’s Yokohama Asia operations, established in February, also began commercial operation in April. The Bangkok, Thailand based company will become the marketing and technical service base for replacement tyres in ASEAN and West Asian countries, and further integrate the purchasing functions of the Yokohama Rubber Group’s manufacturing and sales companies in Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

The new company will also control the purchasing activities of its manufacturing and sales bases in Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam, and multiple business product manufacturing and sales bases in Thailand and Taiwan, an action the company states will reduce costs and accelerate delivery speed compared with the former system of each headquarters’ purchasing department directly controlling raw material purchases.