Pirelli to boost China capacity to meet “high end” demand

Within the next two years capacity at Pirelli’s Jining factory in China’s Shandong province will double to ten million tyres per annum. During a China-based interview with Bloomberg TV on February 24, company chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera mentioned the capacity expansion as part of a 300 million euro investment in China to be made over the coming three years – Pirelli previously postponed its investment there in 2009 due to the recession.

Projected 2011 sales growth for the Asia region has been revised from 15 per cent to 20 per cent due to increasing demand for more expensive vehicles in China, Tronchetti Provera stated. During the 2010 calendar year passenger car sales there rose 33.2 per cent, with a total of 13.76 million vehicles sold. At present China accounts for seven per cent of the Italian tyre maker’s sales; this may grow to ten per cent within two years, the Pirelli Chairman told Bloomberg. He also emphasised Pirelli’s focus in China: “For us, what’s important is the high-end, expensive cars. We are not looking for the mass market.”