Filling a 4×4 gap in the market

During the course of the recent Brityrex exhibition in Manchester, Chris Dawson, head of sales and marketing at Silverline explained how the company’s latest products are helping it achieve its goals. According to Dawson the Atturo brand, for example, has been “exceptionally well received”, with the company having sold out of certain products and sizes six months earlier than expected – despite computer modelling stock projections. The next goal is to sell 10,000 more units of these niche off-road 4×4 tyres during the next 12 months, a goal that should be “easily achievable”, according to Dawson.

From Silverline’s point of view, the reason for this is that – with the combination of strong demand and the addition of the latest products – the company is now able to offer a more complete range than ever. The firm’s product marketing placement strategy sees the company position itself in the gaps left by the large manufacturers. The serious off-road tyre demand generated by those that need such tyres for professional reasons (doctors, vets, farmers, those working for utilities companies) is one example is one example of what this means in practice.

A niche within a niche

Owing to pressure from the original equipment manufacturers and European labelling legislation, the largest tyre makers have generally sought to make their tyres as road-friendly as possible. And with this sub-segment of the wider 4×4 tyre market being fairly small, this means the economies of scale that make large manufacturers successful are not present. Keeping 4×4 tyres emissions and tyre labelling friendly helps the OEMs keep their generally road-fairing SUV customers happy, while at the same time helping with emissions regulations compliance. And with off-road tyres generally being noisier than such products and less efficient when it comes to fuel consumption, this seems to make sense. The problem is that such tyres are not suitable for the true off-road, professional usage market we mentioned before. For them, the combination of OEM emission concerns as well as the manufacturer’s reticence to product the kinds of products they are after produces pent-up demand for a product that can fill this gap in the market.

Silverline launches new Atturo 4×4, SUV tyres at Brityrex 2014

That’s where Silverline comes in. And, according to Chris Dawson, that’s also where Atturo has been particularly proactive: “They are a breath of fresh air. It’s a relatively new brand. Its not carrying legacy sizes. And they are really looking at what the market wants and needs where some big manufacturers have taken their eye off the ball.”

Dawson continued: “The end user wants a professionally viable product – not necessarily what is homologated as original equipment for that vehicle.”

Looking forward, Dawson warned that the increasingly stringent noise regulations – while clearly effective at what they are seeking to do – are inadvertently killing off the mud terrain category of 4×4 tyres. The answer? In future the only kind of product that will be able to meet legislative requirement and still perform in real-life off-road situation is some kind of hybrid, comes the answer. But just as an all-season tyre is neither as good as a winter nor summer product, such a hybrid will inevitably be a performance compromise.

Atturo tyres are contract manufactured at factories in Taiwan and Thailand. As with any private brand, Atturo owns the moulds.

In addition to the Atturo brand, Silverline also exhibited tyres produced by the American brands Mickey Thompson and Cooper 4×4, as well as its MaxXtrac wheels collection.