China Archives - Page 193 of 240 - Tyrepress

Now one of the largest tyre-producing countries in the world, China has an indisputable influence on the direction of global tyre trade. The home of both fast-growing up-and-coming brands as well as a burgeoning domestic market, this tag chronicles China’s involvement with the tyre business.

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Advanced ID Signs $1.8 Million Contract With Kit Loong

Advanced ID Corporation has signed an exclusive, three year commitment contract with Malaysia’s Kit Loong Tyre Management for Advanced ID’s RFID and Pneu-Logic’s Tire Inspection products.

Kit Loong Holdings, one of Southeast Asia’s largest retreaders and tyre distributors works with Goodyear, Dunlop, Michelin, Bridgestone, BF Goodrich, Pirelli, Continental Sime and Cooper. With over 500 employees and revenues exceeding US $40 million, Kit Loong has retreading facilities in Malaysia and China and will install Advanced ID’s RFID tyre tags in their retread operation in Malaysia, with other countries to follow. Kit Loong will purchase Advanced ID RFID readers and Pneu-Logic kits as part of this agreement.

Kit Loong’s territory, covered by this agreement, includes Greater China, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myammar.

19th September 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Alcoa Sells Stake in Chalco for $2 Billion

(Akron/Tire Review) Aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. sold its nearly 7 per cent stake in Chalco, China’s largest aluminum maker, for $2 billion. Alcoa said it would continue to invest in the aluminum industry in China, where it currently manufactures foil, fasteners, automotive components and other products. Alcoa said its initial investment in Chalco was less than $200 million.

14th September 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Conti: Siemens VDO Consolidation “Ensures Top Position”

By purchasing Siemens VDO, Continental AG, Hanover, will profit from key automotive industry trends to a greater degree in the future, the company said in a recent statement. “The perspectives for the industry as shown at the IAA 2007 clearly confirm our view that the prevailing topics in the years to come will be safety, climate protection, and infotainment. With the consolidated innovative prowess and the extensive product portfolio of Continental and Siemens VDO, we feel we are excellently positioned as a systems specialist,” said Manfred Wennemer, chairman of the Continental Executive Board, at the International Motor Show on Wednesday in Frankfurt/Main.

12th September 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

US-China to Sign Quick Recall Pact

(Akron/Tire Review) NHTSA and the Chinese government will sign an agreement Sept. 12 that will help speed the recall of defective auto parts. The “memorandum of cooperation” gives NHTSA a tool to speed recalls of Chinese-made goods. If the agreement had been in place this summer when concerns arose about the tires, “we would have felt much more comfortable reaching out to the Chinese government and asking for their assistance,” said Nicole Nason, NHTSA administrator.

11th September 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Lines of Distinction?

(Akron/Tire Review) Our industry – at home and abroad – has been building tires for more than a century. Along the way, we allowed ourselves to be fooled every once in a while by ‘technology’ that really didn’t live up to its billing. One example is the single-ply tire promoted as being as strong as a two-ply tire.

Great progress has been made, both in technology and in marketing. Let there be no doubt about the safety advances built into today’s tyres compared to those built in 1908. And, yes, there have been some stinkers along the way, but by and large, this industry has led the world in packing more performance and safety into one single product than any other.

If anything remains unchanged, it continues to be our penchant for putting an acronym or label on everything, the latest being the so-called “global tyre,” which doesn’t sound half as meaningful as the phrase it replaced – “world-class tyre.”

10th September 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

US Tyre Recall Saga Could Be Over

Foreign Tire Sales Inc.’s quarter-million US recall of Hangzhou Zhongce-produced tyres will end on 25 October, according to US news sources. At the same time US and Chinese regulators are expected to sign a cooperation agreement that could help resolve disputes like this. However, according to media reports, this is not the first time such an approach has been taken. The Consumer Product Safety Commission signed a memorandum of understanding with its Chinese counterpart three years ago.

This week’s Sino-U.S. Consumer Product Safety Summit brings together the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and China’s General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, as well as representatives of American companies that import toys, fireworks and cigarette lighters from China. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has a $63 million budget and a full-time staff of about 400 people to monitor billions of dollars’ worth of goods. Legislation is in the works to strengthen the agency.

10th September 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Tiger Auto Mauls a 19 Per Cent Headline Earnings Increase

Tiger Automotive has thrived since its unbundling from Tiger wheels last December, and the company’s latest financial bear testimony to the wheel and tyre distributor’s good health. Tiger Automotive reports that in its first full year as a company listed with South Africa’s JSE stock exchange in its own right, it has achieved a 19 per cent increase in headline earnings, to Rs 1.242 (£0.085) a share. Revenue has risen 17.3 per cent to Rs 1.1 billion (£75.3 million). The company reports that these results counter the typical pattern of lower earnings in the second half. At the half-year stage, headline earnings were 15.2 per cent up at Rs 0.61 (£0.042), and the forecast was for a slight increase in full-year earnings.

“This pleasing rise in earnings was achieved because we were able to rectify – although not completely – problems that impacted on the first half,” said group managing director Keith Rivers.

Pre-tax profit (for the year to 30 June) increased 15.5 per cent to Rs 101.3-million (£6.9 million), while attributable profit was up by almost Rs 10 million to Rs 73.7 million (£5.04 million). In lieu of an annual dividend, the company is making a capital distribution of Rs 0.49 (£0.03) a share.

7th September 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Goodyear Keeps it Local in China

The recently reported capacity expansion plans for Goodyear’s Dalian plant in China – to 17,000 tyres a day or 10 per cent of global production – will mostly be supplied from local sources. Over a number of years Goodyear has shared its technology with a number of Chinese companies, and these firms are now playing an ever-larger role in keeping the materials required for making tyres coming into the plant.

Local suppliers include Jiangsu Xingda Steel Tyre Cord Co. Ltd., who provide steel cord; Jiangsu Junma Group for nylon 6 yarn; China Shenma Group for nylon 6,6; and carbon black supplier Jiangxi Black Cat Carbon Black Co. Goodyear plans to source between £300 million and £500 million worth of materials from China by 2010.

And just as much of what enters the factory is from local sources, much of what comes out is also staying close to home. A large chunk of the Dalian factory’s output is being taken up by Chinese based vehicle manufacturers for OE fitment. Goodyear is the exclusive tyre supplier for BMW in China, and the tyremaker also supplies to Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive Co., FAW-Volkswagen Automobile Co., Great Wall Motor Co., Brilliance Jinbei Automobile Co., as well as local Toyota, Nissan and Honda operations.

6th September 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Exports from India Growing Steadily

The value of tyre exports from India has grown at an average of 11 per cent per annum during the last decade, according to India’s Automotive Tyre Manufacturers’ Association. The current value of exports of all category of tyre is Rs 26 billion (£315.5 million). During the 1996/97 financial year total exports only amounted to Rs 8.32 billion (£101 million).

Since the start of this current decade the strongest export growth has been in the passenger car sector, with exports increasing more than tenfold to 966,046 units in 2006/07. While this amount is still dwarfed by exports of truck tyres (2,276,049 units) and tyres for light commercial vehicles (1,599,230), the high level of passenger car tyre radialisation achieved by tyremakers has provided them with a product that can potentially gain acceptance in many more overseas markets.

6th September 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Goodway to Set Up Tyre & Retread JV in China

Malaysia’s stock exchange, the Bursa Malaysia, has released news that Goodway Integrated Industries has signed a joint venture agreement through its wholly owned Hong Kong subsidiary Goodway Pte Limited with Hong Kong based World Bond Ltd, a company jointly owned by two residents of China, Lu Xiao Fei and Guan Huai Yun. The joint venture company, Newco, will engage in the manufacture and sale of tyres, “recycled rubber tyres” and precured tread liner.

Under the joint venture agreement, Newco will subscribe for 9,999 new ordinary shares of HK$10 (£0.64) nominal value in a newly incorporated Hong Kong company, which will then acquire two wholly-foreign owned entities (WFOEs) for HK$20 million (£1.27 million). The WFOEs will carry out the business of manufacturing and selling the above-mentioned products within the People’s Republic of China in accordance with the terms of the joint venture agreement.

6th September 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Conti Acquires Chinese Auto Components Firm

Continental AG’s Automotive Systems Division plans to further consolidate its position in China through the acquisition of Zhangjiagang Fugang Heli Electronics Co., Ltd. from China’s Fugang Group. Conti intends to integrate the operations of Fugang Heli, who manufactures cooling fan modules and window lift motors, into the division’s Electric Drives business unit upon regulatory approval of the purchase.

The Chinese company was founded in 2005 and employs approximately 250 staff at its headquarters in Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu Province and two production facilities in Zhangjiagang and Changchun, Jilin Province. Last year Fugang Heli achieved sales of RMB 84 million (£5.526 million) and sold it products to both domestic and international vehicle manufacturers.

“With the acquisition of Fugang Heli, Continental Automotive Systems will enhance the local production capability in order to better meet the demand of OEMs in China as well as develop a new base for export into other regions in Asia based on a cost competitive manufacturing,” said Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann, president Continental Automotive Systems and member of Continental AG’s Executive Board. “The deal will greatly help Continental Automotive Systems to strengthen its worldwide leading position in cooling fan modules at existing and emerging marketplaces, where our OEM customers are doing their business.”

4th September 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Wondraschek: New Business and Old Traditions

For smaller companies involved in the tyre business it is sometimes equally important to stick to good old traditions as it is to find a way to develop the business creatively. A company that has obviously succeeded in both over the years is the retreader and tyre dealer “Reifen Wondraschek” from the Austrian city of Linz. While in the past the company was mainly known for its activities in the retreading business, today the company engages in an increasing range of new activities, such as exclusive distribution of the Cooper brand in Austria or – as of this year – the exclusive rights to market the Nexen brand in Austria. And just as Reifen Wondraschek is embarking on new businesses, old ones are being phased out. At the end of last year the company ceased producing retreaded tyres for passenger cars. This step was necessary, although painful at the same time as passenger car tyre retreading was once the core business of Reifen Wondraschek, which was founded in the 1930s as a vulcanising company.

31st August 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Another Capacity Increase on the Cards for Hankook in China

Hankook plans to boost annual passenger car tyre capacity at its Jianxian facility in China by two million units. When this expansion is completed early next year the plant will have an annual capacity of 18 million tyres. The Korean manufacturer’s current total capacity from its two factories in China is 28 million units.

31st August 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Special: China – Tyre market without equal

Since November 2004, when Tyres & Accessories introduced China as “a market emerging from the haze”, the country and its tyre business has continued to develop at a dramatic speed. This is not only because Chinese tyre manufacturers have turned their attention towards European markets but also because Western manufacturers are pushing forward into China. This is where they want to produce tyres that are then sold either domestically or on export markets in Europe or North America. Today, China and the Chinese tyre market is no longer hiding in the haze but basking in bright sunlight. In China alone about 330 million tyres are produced annually, 235 million of which are radial tyres, and of this 180 million are passenger and light truck radials. And it goes without saying that the Chinese tyre market is bound to grow.

The growth of the Chinese tyre market is first of all a growth of the international tyre majors. It is some time since these companies began to carve out their territories in China. In doing so they have benefited from their superior brands, technologies and distribution structures. And often they have deeper pockets than most of their Chinese competitors, who cannot all keep up. The Chinese tyre market stands at the threshold of full integration into global economic structures.

With this new edition of our bilingual supplement on the Chinese tyre market the two sister publications Tyres & Accessories and Neue Reifenzeitung are again taking a close look at what’s taking place behind the Chinese wall.

The bilingual supplement “China – Tyre market without equal“ can be downloaded as a PDF file by clicking here.

29th August 2007/by Tyrepress Editors

Federal Launches New Hero Tyre Line

Taiwan’s Federal Corporation has rolled out a new addition to its “Hero” brand passenger car line-up, the Atlanta AR01. Produced in China under what Federal assures are uniform quality standards, the Atlanta AR01 is marketed as a high-end product in terms of both safety and value.

The new AR01 features 4 circumferential grooves for water dispersal, improving wet surface road holding, and siping on the tyre’s shoulders is intended to minimise road noise. The quest to create a quieter tyre has also been aided by the computer optimised tread pattern.

Initially the Hero AR01 will be available for three market sectors; high performance, with 195/55R15 and 205/55R16 sizes available. For the touring segment sizes are available to fit rims between 13 and 15-inches with speed ratings up to ‘H’ available. WSW tyres are available in sizes 215/70R15 to 225/70R15, with 16 and 17-inch sizes available at a later date.

29th August 2007/by Tyrepress Editors