CEAT Ltd.
Ceat Tyres is planning to set up a new truck and bus radial production plant, which would also be used to produce car, tractor and speciality tyres, such as EM/OTR products, with at estimated cost range of 4.5 – 6 billion rupees (around £51 million). Local news sources have reported that the company is currently “scouting for land across India.” The final decision will reportedly be taken shortly.
Ceat Ltd, one of India’s leading tyre manufacturers, has launched the ‘Ceat Mile XL’ truck tyre onto Indian roads. General manager marketing, Rajiv Jain told reporters that the Mile XL is designed to produce 15 per cent more mileage than other similar tyres. “With the transportation scenario in the country undergoing drastic changes, Mile XL will cater to the need of carrying additional weight and performing at higher speed, even while providing higher mileage,” he said. On an average, Ceat manufactures 1.8 million tyres per annum in its manufacturing facilities at Mumbai and Nasik, and had a market share of 18 per cent in truck tyre industry, Jain told local news sources.
In recent years Indian tyre manufacturer Ceat (established in 1958) has shown consistent signs of growth, and the company’s wide range of industrial products is no exception to this trend. The Ceat industrial range includes tractor drive axles tyres R3 and R4, skid steer products, industrial forklift MPT fitments and container handling tyres. According to the company, Altura tyres feature high contact areas for low rolling resistance, brake plies to increase puncture resilience and high tensile strength bead wires for proper rim/tyre fitment. So whether your vehicles operate in a port or an urban warehouse, the Indian manufacturer says it has a product for you.
Indian tyre maker MRF Ltd. is considering a price rise of up to six per cent to meet a sharp increase in rubber and oil prices, a top official said.
However, the company would decide the timing and degree of the increase only after watching market conditions and the strategy of competitors, said Philip Eapen, executive director for marketing.
“Eventually if we do not increase our prices fully, there will be a time when we will incur losses,” he continued.
(Akron/Tire Review) Indian tiremaker Ceat say it will increase imports of radial truck tyres to 2,000 units per month within the next 18 months. Currently, Ceat imports some 500 tyres per month, produced for Ceat by Pirelli at its manufacturing plant in Turkey. “Seeing a gradual increase in demand for domestic radial truck tyres, we intend to step up our imports from Pirelli,” Ceat managing director Paras Chowdhary told Indian media.
Ceat Tyres plans to expand production capacity at its Nashik radial tyre plant. Managing director Paras K. Chowdhary told local newspapers: “The Nashik plant has a production capacity of 40,000 tyres per month, which would go up to 65,000 after expansion.” The company plans to raise to capacity to 100,000 PCR tyres per month six months after the first phase is complete.
Tyre manufacturer CEAT has said that it will commission its radial tyre factory – the only radial plant on the island – this July and be supplying radial tyres to the local market in August, with exports beginning in October. The factory cost 350 million rupees (six million euros) and will produce two ranges of tyres; one for cars and one for vans. Initially the range will comprise the most popular sizes, with others added at a later date.
CEAT Kelani Associated Holdings is to invest 300 million rupees (£1.67 million) into the radialisation of its Kelaniya, Sri Lanka plant Managing director Rohan Fernando explained that the new equipment would produce tyres for “light weight vehicles.” Local news sources have reported that the manufacturing upgrade will be funded by local banks.
The Al-Dobowi Group has announced plans to participate in the 11th International Automotive Aftermarket ‘AAME 2006’ scheduled to be held from 20 – 22 March 2006 at the Dubai World Trade Centre, Dubai, UAE. The Middle East’s Automotive Industry is estimated to be worth around 18 billion dirhams (£2.8 billion, 4.1 billion euros).
While India is home to one of the world’s fastest growing tyre markets, when it comes to exports the countries domestic manufacturers are wary of being caught out on quality control and having to face “extreme” insurance claims.
According to the Financial Express newspaper, India exports 20 per cent of its annual tyre production and some of the country’s largest producers are still struggling to ramp up exports for various reasons, including “liabilities arising of defective products” – Indian manufacturers simply cannot afford to be involved in a large scale product recall in either the European or US markets.
The Indian tyre lobby has convinced the government to initiate anti-dumping proceedings against imports from China and Thailand. Tyre makers allege that over 35,000 bus and truck tyres are being imported from China and Thailand every month at huge discounts compared to global and domestic prices, India’s Economic Times reported.
(India/Rubber Asia) With annual consumption by the Indian tyre industry of over 400,000 tonnes of natural rubber (NR), “a price increase of just 1 a kilogram, imposes an annual financial burden of over 400 million rupees on us,” says Paras K Chowdhary, CMD of Ceat Tyres and chairman of Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) of India.
The average price of NR has gone up from 39.17 rupees/kilo in 2002-03 to 63 rupees in 2005-06 (October) — an increase of 23 a kilo in about three years. This translates into about 8,800 million rupees annual financial burden on the Indian tyre makers, he said. (1$ = about 44 rupees).
(India/Rubber Asia) When the Indo-Lanka Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was signed in December 1998, informed opinion may have considered it experimental. In Sri Lanka, the questions raised were: “Will Indian goods flood the Sri Lanka market?” and “Does Sri Lanka have the resources to penetrate the vast Indian market?”
The FTA became operational in March 2000, and trade across the Palk Strait has expanded significantly since then. When the Sri Lankan and Indian Prime Ministers met in June 2002, they decided to widen the scope of cooperation under the FTA which dealt with trade and tariffs, to include services, technology and investment, thus moving the two economies towards greater integration and propelling them forward to a Comprehensive Econonomic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
India’s Apollo Tyres Ltd tyres has reduced its prices by a range of 2-4.5 per cent. The announcement follows Indian finance minister, P Chidambaram’s decision to reduce excise duty on tyres from 24 to 16 per cent. After MRF and Ceat cut their prices there was speculation that other large manufacturers would also pass the savings onto consumers. “The price cut is in the range of 2-4.5 per cent across products and various categories,” a company official said, declining to go into the specifics of the price reduction.After the Budget announcements, the excise duty on truck and bus tyres for the replacement market was reduced to 16 per cent. Truck and bus tyre accounted for over 70 per cent of the turnover of the tyre industry in value terms.
In India tyre prices are “tumbling” in response to the government’s decision to cut excise tax by eight per cent, local news sources have reported. According to India’s Economic Times, MRF and Ceat have announced 4 – 6 per cent price cuts, while others such as Apollo, Goodyear and Birla Tyres are likely to follow the same lead. This means that typical non-radial bus and truck tyres are 1000 rupees cheaper.
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