Sentury internationalising with US tyre factory investment
Step off the plane and into a car at Qingdao airport and it won’t be long before you see a Sentury Tire billboard. While this particular Chinese tyre manufacturer isn’t a global player, it is rapidly internationalising and is selling millions of tyres in Europe (many of which end up in the UK). The firm is expanding very quickly and recent high-profile appointments and off-shore factory investment announcements suggest the firm is well and truly on a growth path. Towards the end of 2015, Tyres & Accessories met with export sales manager Hellen Yang and Davanti vice-general manager Wilson Zhang for a tour of the firm’s large and very modern factory near Qingdao airport.
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Dmack partners Junior British Rally Championship
Dmack has extended its support for British rallying with the creation of the Dmack Junior BRC category. The tyre brand will offer a subsidised prize drive in the 2017 Drive Dmack Fiesta Trophy, worth £60,000, to the winning driver. Dmack stated that the series creates a career ladder to help bring young drivers from club rallying level in the UK to the top of the FIA World Rally Championship. As part of the package, the Junior BRC category will be supplied by Dmack tyres throughout the 2016 season.
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Dedicated brand managers join Bridgestone, Firestone teams
The sales and marketing teams at Bridgestone and Firestone have been strengthened by the arrival of two dedicated brand managers. Peter Coleman and Stuart Attfield join the two respective teams and in doing so supplement a strengthened salesforce and pricing department. Both report to consumer marketing manager Wim Belckx and sales and marketing director Farrell Dolan.
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Early 2016 opening for BKT R&D centre
Every year, Indian off-road tyre specialist Balkrishna Industries Ltd. invests three to four per cent of its turnover into research and development, and through this focus the company is able to bring 60 to 80 new types of tyre to market annually. The reported average development time for these tyres is six to eight weeks.
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Hankook building winter tyre proving ground in Finland
Ivalo is the destination of choice for many tyre makers when it comes to testing winter and cold weather products, and Hankook Tire has announced plans to establish its own European winter tyre testing facility near the Finnish village. The company recently signed a contract to build this together with Test World Oy.
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Goodyear launches third generation of flagship ultra-high performance tyre
Goodyear has launched the next generation of its ultra-high performance summer tyre, the Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3. The tyre is the latest in the Eagle series that has given the manufacturer many test wins and a track record of original equipment homologation. The latest version contains technologies that improve braking, handling and control performance in both dry and wet conditions; characteristics that were benchmark tested independently at TÜV Süd.
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Mike Welch on Michelin takeover, Blackcircles’ growth and expectations
With Michelin buying a stake in Allopneus as well as the complete Blackcircles business in the Spring; and with Apollo purchasing Reifen.com in November, it is fair to say we witnessed a trend towards manufacturer investment in online tyre businesses this year. Dig a little deeper and we are beginning to learn more about how tyre manufacturers are approaching this unavoidably important strategic area. With 2015 being something of a landmark year in this respect, Tyres & Accessories met with Blackcircles founder and managing director Mike Welch in Edinburgh to find out more.
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2015 a winning year for Kirkby Tyres
Established in in 1958, Kirkby Tyres Ltd is amongst an elite list of leading tyre wholesalers operating in the UK and Ireland. And while the Liverpool-based family company has been around for some time, in recent years the company has demonstrated impressive and consistent growth. 2015 was no different and culminated with the firm winning “Truck and Agricultural Tyre Supplier of the Year” at the 2015 NTDA Tyre Industry Awards. Tyres & Accessories spoke with Kirkby Tyres marketing manager Adam Bromilow to find out more.
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Goodyear implements direct online sales in US
Last January at its annual dealer conference, Goodyear unveiled plans to launch direct-to-consumer online sales across the US through its Goodyear.com website. Since then, Michelin has bought into two large European e-tailers and Apollo has acquired another. Clearly 2015 has been the year that tyre majors have allowed their online retail strategies surface. And while approaches differ between manufacturers and markets, Goodyear’s US approach is by far the most direct. At the moment, this approach centres on North America, however what we learn from Goodyear’s case is valuable in any market. In mid-November Tire Review editor Jim Smith met with Goodyear’s Mike Dauberman, senior director of marketing and interactive, and Bill Friel, general manager of consumer dealer retail, and here gives Tyres per cent Accessories readers access to their conversation.
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Pirelli Calendar 2016: First images released
Following the launch of its 2016 Calendar earlier this week, Pirelli has released a set of Annie Liebovitz’s celebrity portraits. The images (viewable below) feature one of the greatest ever tennis players, Serena Williams; rock legend and writer, Patti Smith; one of the world’s most prominent comedians, Amy Schumer; and the hugely popular Chinese microblogger, Yao Chen. Liebovitz has taken the tyre giant’s flagship marketing activity in a new direction in the 2016 edition – apparently at Pirelli’s behest – and Tyres & Accessories was impressed with the results; read the full report from the press conference on Tyrepress.com.
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Kihn to replace Wells as Goodyear’s EMEA president
Jean-Claude Kihn has been named president of Goodyear Tire & Rubber’s Europe, Middle East and Africa business. The president of the Latin America business will fully assume his new role on 1 January 2016, succeeding Darren R. Wells, who will leave Goodyear in early 2016.
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Michelin buys ‘Fox Farm’ test centre in Ivalo, Finland
Michelin has acquired the Fox Farm artic test centre in Ivalo, Finland in order to “reinforce its testing and approval operations for winter tyres for passenger cars, vans and trucks”. Michelin, which made the purchase through its Michelin European Technology Centre, reports that it has operated the site for more than 20 years on an exclusive basis, regularly carrying out its testing and approval operations for winter tyres there. According to the company, the purchase guarantees Michelin can control its own test equipment and “top up” its winter testing resources, which range from Alpine passes to the Finnish plains as well as indoor infrastructures.
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Michelin refreshes maxi scooter range with two new tyres
Paris-based motorcycle exhibition Le Salon de la Moto played host to the global premiere of two new Michelin tyres aimed at a healthily-growing transportation segment. This pair of products is the Michelin Pilot Road 4 Scooter and Pilot Power 3 Scooter.
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Pirelli completes transition year with Cal 2016 launch
Pirelli has capped a transition year with the launch of its flagship branding product in London. Like the Italian company, now under the control of Aeolus brand manufacturer ChemChina, the 2016 edition of the Pirelli Calendar has been launched in a new and somewhat unexpected form. In the hands of legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz for the second time, the Cal has undergone a dramatic shift in character away from both the female models usually a staple of the annual publication and the almost exclusively erotic tone. The 13 subjects are instead photographed in simple, naturalistic poses – “noone was supposed to look like they’d tried,” Leibovitz says – which are designed to portray the diverse range of the female subjects’ achievements; the subjects are representatives from professional, charity, cultural and sporting spheres. The Cal was introduced by Pirelli executive vice president and CEO Marco Tronchetti Provera in a press conference at Grosvenor House, with Claire Balding chairing a panel of guests, comprising Leibovitz and three of her subjects. The launch continued in the evening at Camden’s Roundhouse, a former industrial building and iconic music venue – presumably familiar to Leibovitz, who started her rise to legendary status at Rolling Stone magazine – since the 1960s.
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Duraturn establishing UK tyre business
Tyres & Accessories first met Duraturn at Reifen China in Shanghai in 2009. This wasn’t long after the company was founded in 2008 and yet the young companies ambitions were clear. At the point, the firm was not export ready, but things changed markedly in the few years that followed. The next time T&A met company representatives in 2010, less than two years after the business’s foundation, Duraturn’s production base was already well on the way to producing 1 million truck tyres a year truck and bus radial tyre production plant. The company broke ground on its passenger car radial tyre manufacturing line in 2013 and two years later is producing, modern compliant products for sale in China and for international export. Originally the company referred to itself using the firm’s official name - Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum (Group) Rubber Co., Ltd. Now the company is bringing its tyre businesses under the more international “Duraturn” brand and embarking on an internationalisation programme that this year sees the firm put an emphasis on building business relationships in the UK.
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