Apollo Plans Rs 30 Billion Investment in Five Years

With the battle cry of large investment plans, Apollo is continuing its march towards the company’s goals of becoming a “Top Six” international manufacturer and turning over $4 billion in the next five years. The major Indian player is already in the process of setting up new factories in Chennai and Eastern Europe, though the company has yet to confirm the location of the latter.

Apollo vice chairman and joint MD, Neeraj Kanwar told the Press Trust of India, “We will invest about Rs 3,000 crore [£4.07 billion; 1 GBP = 73.7 INR] over the next five years. Me and my whole team’s desire is to be amongst the top six players of the world.” Meanwhile, Business Standard reports that Apollo is considering Slovakia and Poland for the location of its first European plant, having hit difficulties in Hungary (as reported on Tyrepress.com earlier in the year).

Apollo’s Chennai plant should be producing this time next year: “After the Chennai plant is commissioned, we would produce 35,000 passenger radial tyres and 1,800 truck/bus radial tyres per day. By then we would account for 25-28 per cent of the total tyre production in the country,” said Kanwar.

Business Standard also reports that a portion of the proposed investment will expand its existing domestic unit in Vadodara, which manufactures OTR tyres. According to the paper, Apollo entered into an agreement with construction equipment maker BEML to supply to Coal India. Apollo turned over $1.2 billion last fiscal and plans to stretch revenues to $2 billion by 2010. After that, the company hopes to double the figure by 2013.