Ceat Expands Nashik Plant Capacity

Ceat has reportedly increased tyre production capacity at its Nashik, India plant by over 1,000 tonnes a month. The plant produces truck, light commercial vehicle (LCV) and agricultural tyre products. Local news reports said that as a result of the expansion the Nashik facility’s truck tyre capacity has increased by 1,700,000 units, LCV tyres by 96,000 units and rear tractor lines by 50,000 units annually.

Writing in an official statement, Ceat said it invested around 200 million rupees (£2.85 million; 3.23 million euros US$4.52 million) in the expansion because it saw “a robust opportunity for increasing its market share in these segments.” With this expansion the firm says it aims to increase overall market share by more than 2 per cent.

Despite local reports carrying the news now, its appears that expansion work finished during the summer. In a financial report published 27 July Ceat Ltd managing director Paras K. Chowdhary said: “We have already completed the Nasik plant expansion and our radial plant will be operational soon. Ceat is strongly moving forward with its plans for capacity building for radials,” explaining that channel expansion and brand building will lead to margin expansion in future. It is not clear whether Chowdhary was referring to separate bias and radial expansion plans or if the above 200 million rupee investment covered both projects. Although the scale of the invest signalled in the Indian news reports enough does not seem to be sufficient to cover two expansion projects of this scale.

Ceat Tyres is the flagship company of RPG Enterprises and manufactures over 10 million tyres annually and reportedly enjoys a major share in the light truck and truck tyre markets.

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