Strong Indian contingent at Automechanika Middle East

Automechanika 2011 features a strong contingent of Indian tyre manufacturers and distributors including well known names such as JK Tyre, BKT and Emrald, to name just three. As the show organisers expanded the number of exhibitors many times over at the fair in general, it appears to have been a conscious decision to invite tyre makers from the subcontinent to the tyre halls in a bid to attract increasingly influential companies in addition to leading Chinese firms such as Hangzhou Zhongce, Shandong Linglong and Sailun.

Emrald Resilient Tyre, the largest exporter of industrial solid tyres from India, showed its five-layer based range of technology. This patent pending multi-layer approach sees the company construct tyres based on five layers rather than the conventional three and (having been initially released in 2003) is in-use worldwide. In addition, countries where the firm’s Greckster-branded products are being used include the US, Canada, UK and also countries in Europe, Middle East and the CIS. Emrald is a major exporter of trailer tyres (higher end sized tyres) for various national and international ports and the company ships its products to more than 60 countries across the globe.

BKT is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of “off-highway tyres”. BKT has a product range with more than 2000 SKU’s (stock keeping units) and describes itself as a “one stop shop” for all off-highway tyres solutions. All the manufacturing units adheres to ISO 9000:2001 and BKT has also been awarded ISO 14001 certificate for its environmental management practices.

JK Tyres, which describes itself as the flagship Company of JK Organisation and is known for manufacturing the JK Tyre, Vikrant and Tornel brands, could also be seen in attendance. According to the company, JK Tyre is India’s leading four-wheeler tyre manufacturer and the 22nd largest tyre manufacturer in the world. JK Tyre & Industries Ltd. has been ranked as No. 1 in JD Power Customer Satisfaction Index in 2009 and is the first and only Tyre Company to be awarded ‘Superbrand’.

Some relatively new names to the pages of T&A include:

Kwik Patch Ltd, a manufacturer of tyre and tube repair patches and conveyor belt repair/splicing systems, which was started in 1987 by the members of the internationally renowned US$3.5B TVS family. Kwik Patch Ltd is a joint venture with Patch Rubber Company, which is a division of the US-based Myers Industries.

NOVA manufactures exclusive products for the automotive segment, such as PSA Nitrogen tyre inflators, membrane nitrogen tyre inflators, and automatic digital tyre inflators, which are used in fuel stations, tyre shops and auto garages.

TM Tyres Ltd is purportedly the leading manufacturer of inner tubes from India. The firm’s plant is specially designed to manufacture two-wheeler tubes, passenger tubes, truck and OTR tubes and each product range has got a separate infrastructure so that the production can be made as per customer requirement/specification.

And finally, retreading materials supplier the Tolins group promoted its tyres and retread products as having been created with “a vast knowledge base in both, rubber and tyre industry which is most crucial to its future organic growth.”