With a market share around 30%, the Apollo brand is the strongest player in India’s enormous commercial vehicle segment. It only arrived in the UK five years ago, but Apollo Tyres’ truck and bus radial range is already very much at home here and well positioned for further growth. We recently caught up with Apollo to find out more.
Strong demand for its two-wheeler tyres in India prompted Apollo Tyres to delay the rollout of its Vredestein motorcycle tyre range for Europe. But with a stated strategic focus upon the “premium motorcycling space” and market share for such products exceeding 20 per cent in India, it is highly feasible that Apollo will revisit its European plans at a later date. The company’s latest premium domestic products give us an idea of what we can expect.
Capacities at Apollo Tyres Ltd.’s production facilities in Europe were 88 per cent utilised between March and June 2022. The utilisation figure for the tyre maker’s plants in India was around 85 per cent, reports chief financial officer Gaurav Kumar. This gives the company little leeway for further growth in volumes, but Apollo Tyres believes it can address this issue without resorting to a greenfield or brownfield capacity expansion project.
During the three months to 30 June 2022, Apollo Tyres Ltd. respectively recorded 38 per cent and 14 per cent year-on-year increases in its Indian and European operations. Total revenue from operations for this, the first quarter of the tyre maker’s 2022-23 financial year, amounted to Rs 59.42 billion (£614.72 million) and was 26.9 per cent higher than during the previous year’s first quarter.
With Apollo Tyres launching a new Vredestein tyre specifically developed for electric vehicles (EVs) later this year, the debut of the tyre maker’s first EV-specific products in India is particularly interesting. Yesterday, Apollo introduced new ranges for cars and two-wheelers.
Apollo Tyres says its EnduRace RD2 has proven a great success since its launch last year. The existing size 315/80 R22.5 tyre will soon be joined by two further dimensions. As of this month, Apollo EnduRace RD2 is also available as a 315/70 R22.5 product, while a 295/80 R22.5 version will arrive next March.
Apollo Tyres reports revenue of Rs 209.48 billion (£2.22 billion) for the financial year ending 31 March 2021, 20 per cent higher than during the prior fiscal year. EBITDA declined 8.0 per cent year-on-year to Rs 25.74 billion (£272.59 million), with the EBITDA margin contracting 379 Bps to 12.3 per cent. Net profit stands at Rs 6.39 billion (£67.67 million).
The tragedy of war always has repercussions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of February is no exception. With reports of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of people already displaced, the human cost is incalculable. While blood is being spilt in Ukraine at a horrifying rate, this war is being fought on at least three fronts: military, electronic and financial. The human cost of the military dimension is beyond the scope of this publication. Likewise, cyber-warfare is probably a bridge too far (unless we are talking about vehicle cyber security, which is of increasing importance right down to the aftermarket garage level – see pages 16 to 17 of our forthcoming March edition for more on this). The economic cost of the war in Ukraine, however, will have an inevitable impact on European tyre production directly due to conflict and indirectly due to logistics and the impact of sanctions.
The South African Competition Commission tyre price fixing hearing got underway in South Africa on 28 January 2022. The Competition Commission names Apollo Tyres South Africa (Pty) Ltd; Goodyear South Africa (Pty) Ltd; Continental Tyres South Africa (Pty) Ltd; Bridgestone South Africa (Pty) Ltd; and South African Tyre Manufacturers Conference (Pty) Ltd its case and alleges that from around 1999-2007, the respondents “discussed and agreed to fix the prices of passenger, light truck, bus, off-the-road, agricultural and earthmover tyres”. This was allegedly done through the SATMC, an association for tyre manufacturers in South Africa. The respondents were members of the SATMC.
As reported on 18 January, Apollo Tyres Ltd. has acquired a 27.2 per cent shareholding in a renewable energy firm, Cleantech Solar subsidiary CSE Deccan Solar. The tyre maker says the reason it did so is to gain a guaranteed annual supply of 40 million units of electricity for its manufacturing facility in Chennai. CSE Deccan Solar expects to begin delivering in July 2022, and this electricity will account for around 20 per cent of the plant’s total requirements and boost the total proportion of renewable energy to more than 30 per cent.
Apollo Tyres Ltd. has acquired a 27.2 shareholding in Indian solar energy firm CSE Deccan Solar, purchasing 1,166,250 shares for a total of Rs 93.3 million (approximately £919,000).
For the three months to 30 September 2021, the second quarter of its 2021-22 financial year, Apollo Tyres reports consolidated revenue of Rs 50.77 billion (£493.84 million). This represents an 18 per cent increase over the same period of the previous fiscal year. EBITDA decreased 9.8 per cent year-on-year, to Rs 6.38 billion (£62.06 million) with a margin of 12.6 per cent (16.5 per cent in Q2 2020-21). Net profit amounted to Rs 1.74 billion (£16.93 million).
Although radial tyres are increasing their share of India’s light commercial vehicle sector, Apollo Tyres points out that around 165,000 cross-ply/bias light commercial tyres are sold throughout India every month. The tyre maker states it is “looking to get a share of this market” and has thus introduced a new cross-ply range, Apollo Bhim. It is offering two SKUs and says these will cater to nearly 80 per cent of the market in this segment.
Hankook Tire and Apollo Tyres are the latest tyre manufacturers to align their natural rubber procurement policies with the framework adopted by the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) in September 2020. Indian firm Apollo has released its first natural rubber policy document, while South Korea’s Hankook has updated the policy it introduced in 2018. Earlier this week, Yokohama Rubber announced it had altered its natural rubber procurement policy to accommodate the GPSNR policy framework.
Goodyear has announced the appointment of Jaap van Wessum as Goodyear sales general manager Consumer UK & Ireland and Cooper Europe. Van Wessum will lead Consumer Sales within the UK & Ireland alongside leading the Cooper Europe business. He will also have responsibility for Goodyear’s legal entity within the UK and Ireland.
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Sora Shimazaki
Goodyear