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.
Michelin staff from China, South America and of course France have held memorial services in honour of Edouard Michelin. The staff independently organised and held the services in order to pay their respects to Michelin who died in a boating accident two weeks ago. At the same time workers at Michelin’s Homburg truck tyre plant have used their anniversary celebrations to rename the site “Platz Eduoard Michelin.”
China’s leading rubber exhibition – Tyres & RubberTech China 2006 (organized by China United Rubber Group Corporation) will take place from 20-22 November 2006 at INTEX Shanghai. The trade fair will occupy an exhibition area of 12,000 square metres, signifying a growth of 100 per cent from the 2005 event. More 400 exhibitors and about 8,000 trade visitors are expected to meet at the exhibition.
Hankook Tire is stepping up efforts to defend its position in the Chinese tyre market by investing in a new local R&D centre, extending production facilities and expanding its sales network. The company announced detailed plans for China its Jiaxing plant on 29 May.
Hankook Tire recently completed the expansion of its production facilities in Jiaxing, enhancing annual capacity to 2.5 million units. As the main production base for the company in China, the Jiaxing plant will undergo further expansion work in the latter half of this year. Once completed by the end of 2006, Hankook Tire will secure total production capacity of 28 million units per year from its Jiaxing and Jiangsu plants in China.
Bridgestone Corporation has confirmed that its European subsidiary, Bridgestone Europe NV/SA (BSEU), is to build a radial truck and bus tyre production plant in Poland. Approximately 200 million euros (¥28 billion) has been earmarked for the project. The new plant will be operated by a wholly-owned subsidiary of BSEU that is to be established. Construction will begin in the first half of 2007, with production expected to get underway in the first half of 2009. Production capacity is projected to be around 5,000 tyres a day.
Kumho Tires has appointed Roger Jenkins as managing director of its Kumho Europe Technical Centre (KETC). He joins the Birmingham-based R&D facility from Goodyear Dunlop where he was manager of the Dunlop Technical Division based at Fort Dunlop.
(Akron/Tire Review) Kumho Tire Co. has broken ground for its third plant in China, a $150 million facility to be located in Changchun in the northeast. Once operational in 2007, the plant will have an annual capacity of 3.15 million tyres. “We aim to become a leader in the Chinese market as well as one of the world’s top five tyremakers,” said Kumho Asiana Group chairman Park Sam-koo at the groundbreaking ceremony in Changchun.
Continental Sime Tyre Sdn Bhd is targeting to raise its output of passenger car tyres to 5.5 million by the middle of 2007, up from last year’s 3.5 million units. The company, a 70:30 merger between Continental AG and Sime Darby Bhd, said it is attempting to increase production at its Alor Star factory to 4.5 million tyres by the end of this year and move passenger tyre manufacturing to Alor Star as well.
Nexen is to break ground on the building of its new Chinese tyre factory on 12 May. The site, situated in Qingdao is expected to begin production by early 2008. The new plant will have a capacity around 5 million units and will increase the company’s total capacity to 20 million tyres. Nexen is reported to have budgeted $80 million dollars for the plant.
The market for cast aluminium wheels is reaching saturation point. While the low-volume, image focused brands are defending their territory in a crumbling segment, the mid-price segment has almost disappeared. At the same time, while the low-price segment may continue to move significant volumes of wheels, branding is to a large extent interchangeable.
Alloy wheels may still be most common tuning part, but that’s just it. Being the most frequently upgraded part means that it loses its exclusivity. Cast aluminium wheels have become a commodity and in some cases are already cheaper than steel wheels.
The exceptions are two or three piece and particularly large-dimensioned wheels. Sizes referred to as tuning sizes have continued to go up. 17 inch is no longer a rarity, so 18 inch and above is where the more focussed volumes can be found. In combination with an expensive tyre, prices can be expected to reach what one might pay for quite a tidy used car. Nevertheless, there is still an exclusive clientele to which these high-value products can be marketed.
In this quantity-limited segment, competition is to a large extent limited to names that hold high levels of brand equity. Other selling points are technological features such as multi-piece design, cavities or flow-forming for weight minimisation, special high polish coatings (chrome or “like-chrome,” high gloss, nano-technology) as well as the forging procedure.
Forged wheels have been around for almost four decades now and first appeared on the Porsche 911, the “baroque wheel” for Mercedes (another forged product) followed and should also be regarded as a classic.
Despite the obvious product advantages regarding weight, compared with cast wheels, the particularly elegant appearance of the conventional forged wheel means it generally only appears on premium brands vehicles like: Audi A8, BMW 5 and 7 series, Aston Martin Vanquish, Mercedes S-class and Maybach. But these wheels are expensive and so in order to make them accessible to owners of less expensive vehicles German company Otto Fuchs invented the light-weight forged wheel. This became a sales success in the original equipment market particularly with the Audi (A3 to A8) because it was used as a “basis wheel” and was not so expensive for the wheel manufacturer. The BMW 3-series, Mercedes E-class and the extremely weight-optimized wheels for Volkswagen’s Lupo 3L and Audi A2 should also be mentioned.
Light weight forged wheels do not play much of a part in the replacement market, but have circulated the segment as part of the spare market. Similarly the conventionally forged wheel has yet to gain a strong foothold on the market and continues in something of a niche existence.
This is due to the fact that the few companies that offer this kind of product are generally priced out of the market. But that is not to say that these products are not worth the money – producing forged wheels requires more investment and is much more expensive than wheels manufactured using the casting procedure.
Forged wheels are produced using a set of forging and/or transforming roll pressing measures. So-called “forgeable alloys” of aluminium (such as AIMgSi1) are also necessary, as opposed to the conventional AlSi7Mg and AlSi11 alloys that cast wheel producers use.
The time is ripe
Coming from the technical side of the business, Peter-Werner Frischkorn is aware of the inherent difficulties associated with communicating the superior characteristics of forged wheels over cast products.
The outstanding surface quality with production-immanent, blowhole-less and nonporous structures in combination with high gloss polishing or alternatively chrome plating is obvious, there must one only place a painted wheel beside.
The weight advantages are also clear and easy to demonstrate – a 17-inch wheel, for example, is around 40 lighter. You only have to lift both wheel types side by side to see, something that means the products continue to be “sellable.”
That’s why Frischkorn and partners founded XTRA Wheels AG, based in Germany, to ensure that these products would continue to be offered in the future. Frischkorn is not interested in competing with the cheaper cast aluminium wheel market. But exclusive technology at a reasonable price should be able to find a place in the market. In other words the strategy is to compete in the premium segment at the lower end of the pricing bracket.
However the company founder is aware of his brand’s main weakness, currently brand awareness of the XTRA name is near zero in the trade and that certainly has to change. To do this Frischkorn has called on the experience of well-known wheelman, Jens Klausdeinken, to be XTRA’s face in the market.
Salesmen might describe it use a wheel’s multi-piece design as selling point, but it can also be a negative characteristic. Frischkorn: “Saying that multipiece wheels offer a price advantage due to the changeability of the ring is absurd in view of the fact that the price for a new ring is on a similar level to the low-priced aluminium cast wheel.” In order to ensure availability, the newly created XTRA team has already rented a warehouse.
Co-shareholder Peter-Werner Frischkorn will be the chief executive officer, since the owners decided to form the business as a public company. The names of the supervisory board members – Yam Hong Stephen Tsui and Yam Ming Tsui – betray, who the partners are. The Tsui brothers are from Hong Kong and have their own (currently not represented in Europe) aluminium casting wheel brand (Gacosia) and cooperate very closely with up-and-coming enterprise China Wheel.
China Wheel was a minor shareholder at the forged wheel manufacturer FullChamp Technologies Co. Ltd. headquartered in the Chu Shan industrial estate in Taiwan. But, as China Wheel president Derek Zhang told Tyres & Accessories, the company already has the right to distribute FullChamp wheels. In the meantime China Wheel had bought its Taiwanese partner.
FullChamp is a relatively young company, which was founded in the summer of 2002 by Mike Wie. Since then the company’s turnover has soared to double digit millions of euros. It should be pointed out that the business, which employees 150 people, also produces other forged products in addition to wheels. However wheels remain core business for the company. The fact that FullChamp has a current annual capacity in the region of 150,000 means that even at this early stage the company has an amazing product range.
In addition to passenger car forgings, truck, motorcycle and even ATV and go-kart wheels are forged. Manufacturing volume can be developed up to 25,000 per month relatively problem free, reports Zhang. But that would mean doubling current capacity. For this push to take place, amongst other things, XTRA will have to take care that all FullChamp manufactured forged wheels are exclusively for the aftermarket.
In answer to the question of why a cast wheel manufacturer like China Wheel wants to market forged wheels, Frischkorn answers: “Our Chinese partners think strategically and on a long-term basis. If we do a good job as a marketing company and are able to establish the brand reasonably, then China Wheel will have a way into Europe to sell its cast wheels through the structures we establish.” This provides the opportunity for a second line brand that could be placed alongside or below XTRA. “However these are purely ideas,” Peter-Werner Frischkorn adds.
And at the moment they cannot materialise. China Wheel currently is running at full capacity in order to serve the US aftermarket. This outstanding export market demands approximately 90 per cent of the company’s production. In fact the company can hardly satisfy all inquiries.
Zhang estimates his company’s share of the US Wheel aftermarket to be more than 20 per cent. And he believes his company has not yet exhausted its potential. The wheels “made in China” are branded with the names of the companies US partners it has off-take agreements with.
And this is a business model that Derek Zhang can imagine being established also in Europe on a mid or long-term basis – the low-priced but quality orientated producer working together with a locally based team with the necessary market knowledge. And so project XTRA begins.
Gacosia, owned by the Tsui brothers, has its headquarters in Hong Kong and a subsidiary in California. China Wheel produces Gacosia its alloy wheels, and in turn the manufacturer considers Gacosia as one of its two self-brands (the other being “Finn”). Stephen Tsui, Gacosia managing director, and his team, spend most of their time in China Wheel’s office space in Guangzhou: “We are very close partners,” he says. The relationship between the wheel brand and its manufacturer – and this is not uncommon in China – is not based on actual contractual agreements, as is the standard in the western countries. Instead it’s a case of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” so to speak.
So far Gacosia wheels have not been sold in Europe, whereas in China they are said to have the image of a “noble brand.” In Shenzhen Stephen Tsui presents two market outlets as being typical of Gacosia: CoolCheCool and the B&B Motor Club.
The CoolCheCool shop is led by Henry Kong and looks like the combination of an accessories shop, a tyre dealer and a fast fit station. In any case business was active during Tyres & Accessories’ visit. Unlike a number of European markets, there are no seasonal high points in this part of China and no particular low point either.
One customer would like a carwash, the next one air conditioning service, in one bay the mechanic works under the engine bonnet, in another the tyres are being changed, the next customer is looking for alloy wheels. The vehicles that come to the shop are the same as you might see arrive at your local tyre dealer and correspond to good European standards. Older cars are rather rare.
This is “a completely normal business day,” observes Kong adding: “Our customers are interested in status symbols.” Thus he is interested in the sale of premium brands. Consequently Phillips, Shell and Denso products are offered to customers. As far as tyres are concerned, Goodyear is the preferred brand. Cheap names or unbranded products are frowned upon here. Nevertheless Kong would buy other products if required. When it comes to wheels he favours Gacosia products, and these are presented in the sales room as well as in the shop window accordingly. The wheels on show are predominantly large dimensioned casted aluminium wheels, which are often chrome plated.
A few roads away, and still rather inconspicuous from the outside, the second sales point is called B&B Motor Club. This outlet is quite different to anything you might find in Europe: This is a garage attached to a first class restaurant and a bar serving fine French wines only the more expensive Cognacs. Venture on into one of the lounges and you will find the two Bs noted in the business’ name. B&B stands for BMW and Benz.
“The business idea is oriented towards members of exclusive golf clubs,” says managing director Angie Cai, one of the few women in the largely patriarchal top management of Chinese enterprises. But the company does not only service Mercedes and BMWs. “For many members the Mercedes or BMW is the secondary car, and we also do not reject Porsche drivers.” That’s an understatement!
The club areas offer all conceivable sources of entertainment, which naturally includes Internet connections. The focus really is on making the visit to a workshop as pleasant as possible. But with service like that don’t members come to the club whether their cars need servicing or not? The simple answer is yes they do. Whether the cars needs work or not, it is still carefully cleaned during the course of the stay.
Across the road from B&B there is a small but high-class hotel exclusively for the use of club members. And it is on seeing this that you understand that it is really an exclusive club with sales rooms and workshops attached. Bearing in mind the competitiveness of the two companies in Europe, it is difficult to understand having both brands under the same roof. Cai just shrugs her shoulders as if to say: “What do we have to do with that?” B&B is a pilot project, employing approximately a hundred people. Cai let it slip that another 10 such enterprises are planned in other Chinese cities.
The workshop is of the high quality you might expect having seen the top class eatery and bar. The equipment is largely from Europe (for example the site uses Maha lifts) and is completely new. The staff work extremely carefully on the equipment and even go as far as wearing white gloves! Cameras are directed towards the cars, so that their owners can see at any time, what is being done to their vehicle. When it comes to tyres B&B is limited to two brands – Pirelli and Continental. The wheels are of course premium Gacosia products.
It is referred still to the fact that one co-operates naturally also with the large German tuners of the mentioned car brands, while on the screen famous racing drivers turns round and round.
The high quality accessories are presented in a high-tech atmosphere, however, and not in the din of racing car motor, but accompanied by the ripple of a waterfall and classical music.
The huge Republic of China is an automotive growth market par excellence. And that applies to the automobile manufacturers as well as their suppliers. The country is not only at the centre of low-price manufacturing for “the rest of the world,” but has also become an enormous sales market in its own right. The cluster of cities in the east of the country is home to millions upon millions of inhabitants and the streetscape is shaped by the sight of premium segment cars and their upper middle class owners. These cities also have well-developed road systems. Rush-hour traffic jams are another familiar sight for anyone used to driving in western metropolises – and that’s despite the numerous additional lanes alongside just as numerous skyscrapers.
Today more than 7 million people live in Shenzen, for example. 20 years ago it was 30,000. These “drawing board” cities provide living space for people who no longer want to share and, in fact, are more likely to be in a position to impact the world economy.
The Chinese aluminium wheel industry is relatively young because the automotive world is similarly young. It has developed in parallel with the Chinese automarket and so consequently has exploded, but this growth was also the intention of the ruling communist party.
China Wheel is not a state enterprise, but rather belongs to the numerous businesses, which are either former state-run companies that have since been privatised or private sector businesses that were formed in capitalist countries. The owners are Patrick Tse (60 per cent, chairman) and his partner Derek Zhang (40 per cent, CEO). And the company is the sort of size that leads one to believe that the next step is to the stock exchange.
The company is built upon a complicated network of participants each holding majority or minority shares, technical consultant Peter-Werner Frischkorn explains. He spends the majority of his time working in China for China Wheel, and has done so for years, and there are still many details of this arrangement that he is not privy to.
China Wheel was involved in the Taiwanese wheel manufacturer FullChamp – a very small share, says Derek Zhang, from which XTRA Wheels (a recently formed German sales company) gets its exclusive forged wheels. “However all rights to distribute these wheels belong to us,” said China Wheels president, smiling. Only a few days later FullChamp also belonged to China Wheel.
From zero to market power in half a decade
China Wheel was founded by Patrick Tse (Xie Jianting in Chinese) and Derek Zhang (Zhang Xinying) in June 2001. Tse is without doubt a businessman. His focus is on ways of making as much money as possible in the shortest time, according to his employees, not to mention the man himself. Tse has been chairman of Huanan Motor Industry and also of the Huatian Group since 1994.
Zhang is a wheel man through and through and his thinking revolves around wheels, wheels an more wheels. In 1989 he joined state-owned Zhongnan Aluminium Alloy Wheel. In 1998 he was appointed managing director of Nanjing Xinning Aluminum Wheel and had decided shortly after “to do his own thing.”
The alliance of the “money man” Tse and the “wheel man” Zhang seems to have come at the right time and a visit to the stock exchange looks a likely course of action in the future. In addition to its core business China Wheel owns various “edge activities” including car dealerships and other non-wheel forging and casting operations.
And the reason for the joint entry into the wheel business? Neither one had the money or the time to build-up their own factory alone, according to Zhang. But there must have been enough money, in order for them to buy several factories one after the other.
Today the group owns three full-scale aluminium casting wheel plants and four chromium-plating factories. In 2005 the company’s manufacturing capacity totalled 2.6 million units annually, this is expected to rise to 3.5 million in 2006. Meanwhile its chromium plating capacity (based on US company Atotech’s technology) was 945,000 units across its four plants.
At present China Wheel employs more than 2,000 people, 2,200 including administration and development staff (approximately 50 engineers). In terms of quantity this makes China Wheel the fourth biggest in China. As far as turnover is concerned, the enterprise is one of three fighting for second position (see Chinese market box).
Overwhelming sales development
In 2001 China Wheel turned over 3 million euros. The following year this increased tenfold, in 2003 it doubled again (reaching 60 million euro). By 2004 annual turnover was approximately 110 million euros, with as much as 150 million in 2005.
Now Derek Zhang talks about entering a period of consolidation, but this certainly doesn’t mean that any expansion plans will be interrupted. Instead he is simply referring to the fact that doubling turnover within a year is no longer possible for the company. China Wheel is also quite profitable and about seven per cent of its turnover flows back into new technology and product development each year.
And product development is something that happens at an almost incomprehensible rate. Since the establishment of the company, more than 1000 new wheel designs have been created, with nearly 3000 moulds. True, some of the designs can only be seen in North America and others have disappeared because it was decided they were too ‘playful’ even for there. But with a target of creating two new designs each day, some flops have to be expected.
The difference to western companies, says PW Frischkorn, is that the decision makers do not have a long time to consider and examine each concept. If Zhang or one of his designers has a new idea promising only moderate success, then it proceeds to the next stage of development.
At present China Wheel is the only Chinese wheel manufacturer capable of producing 26 or 28-inch wheels. In fact, the large wheel American Racing presented in 2003 (fitted with a Kumho tyre) was not manufactured by the Americans, but by its production partner China Wheel. Meanwhile the size record has since gone to a three-piece 10×30 inch wheel presented by Lexani/USA. However, this highly polished product has special chromium plating, which was built, according to our information in Taiwan and fitted with a Hankook tyre.
However (large) size isn’t everything. China Wheel also makes 8-inch wheels for golf caddies. In either case, China Wheel has one target, to present itself as a premium manufacturer of premium products.
The company has already succeeded to some extent in the US. Here the wheels it produces are not branded with its own name or one of the two house brands (Gacosia and Finn), but rather AR and/or American Racing, Dakota, Racing Motegi, Wheel Pros, Giovanna etc. The management has a different approach to other Chinese enterprises, the CEO stresses. His company sees further than price alone and also understands flexibility – an essential quality for an aftermarket-focused business – not to mention quality, without which the necessary reputation cannot be established.
Derek Zhang can imagine similar alliances in Europe China Wheel already produces Momo brand wheels which were previously produced in Italy by Fomb. What works in America may also work in Europe using a similar off-take model. Why shouldn’t an established Italian or German sales company capitalise on the benefits of working with a quality producer like China Wheel?
In America the door was wide open for China Wheel because the domestic aftermarket wheel manufacturers had very old-fashioned plants. In Europe Zhang recognizes that wheel manufacturers have shifted towards Eastern Europe, but he believes that the day will come when these locations will also prove not to be competitive. In this scenario the Chinese producers like China Wheel, Liufeng and others will have the upper hand.
Zhang reports that his company is open to the possibility of making foreign acquisitions or entering into a joint-venture with a sales business, says European wheel manufacturers may also make interesting acquisitions. Company data implies that this could mean the acquisition of a company that is already active in the wheel business, if there was the right opportunity.
Entering the OE business in the company’s existing form would not be the highest priority for Derek Zhang, something that is based on the fact that he sells the company’s current production levels without any problems in the US. China Wheel has a market share of more than 20 per cent in the US, according to Zhang’s estimates, because of the numerous brands that are produced in China. There is also sufficient demand for the further capacity that the company is planning.
Zhang nevertheless brings up the subject of working OE production in partnership with another company “perhaps in three to five years.” Zhang recognizes the high standards in the original equipment field and is not interested in getting involved in a price war simply in order to increase his company’s OE market share.
Currently 90 per cent of the wheels produced by China Wheel are exports to the US, with the remaining 10 per cent are divided between Europe, Japan, Australia and the Middle East.
In terms of technology, China Wheel already has the same equipment that is used by others in the OE business.
China Wheel has, for example, acquired casting automats and processing machines that were previously used by Opel, Skoda and other manufacturers, not to mention a modern Eisenmann painting plant, which was acquired within the framework of the Intra insolvency. The Intra signature can still be seen in parts of the Jiangmen factory today.
The Jiangmen (Guangdong province) facility is currently China Wheel’s largest wheel factory. When Tyres & Accessories visited the site there were 32 casting automats at the factory that attracts the lion’s share of the company’s investments. 900 people live on-site, 700 of which work in the factory – some workers bring their families with them. The average age of employees is about 28. Many come from far-off provinces in order to return to their homeland village as well-respected men after years of factory work. Additional workforce is in no short supply. The pool of potential employees is enormous as jobs at the factory are considered to be highly desirable.
The factory only produces AlSi7 alloy and the output was at the time of our visit (autumn 2005) was just-about 1 million units. Plans to extend this to1.5 million units are part of the company’s short-term investment programme.
There is another expansion project at the Taian (Shandong province) site. This is set to bring the facilities capacity from 800.000 units (with 600 workers) up to 1.4 million units (with 1000 workers). Here, as at all its factories, the company produces exclusively using the low-pressure process using machines originating from Germany and Denmark. Partners Tse and Zhang started our with the Taian factory.
The third wheel factory is in Tianmen (Hubei province), in which 450 employees produce 600,000 casted wheels annually. One production “bottleneck” here is in the painting side of the process.
China Wheel owns four chrome plating factories (in Taian, Shandong province; Donghua, Donghui and Zengcheng all in Guangdong province) with an annual capacity of just under 1 million units. In view of demand for chrome wheels from the USA, this is clearly not sufficient so in the future, Oriental UMA (Zhong Shan) Automotive Decor Ltd. will give China Wheel’s products an even higher level polish as probably the most modern chromium plating plant in the world.
The three pillars of China Wheel are – according to Derek Zhang – first of all reputation, secondly service and thirdly (as the a company slogan puts it) “Let customers be moved.” This really sums up how China Wheel in general and Derek Zhang in particular see alloy wheels as completely emotional products.
Dr Alan Hippe has admitted that retreating from the North American tyre business is an option. This is the first time a top-level manager has made such an assertion. Dr Hippe, board member responsible for finance, controlling and law – and also Continental Tire North America (CTNA) president and CEO – told German daily Die Welt: “In principle, if there is no more prospect of profitably working in the US passenger car tyre business, in the long run we will withdraw the US market.” CTNA’s US passenger car tyre business has been in the red since 2000.
(Akron/Tire Review) Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. announced that net sales set a new quarterly record of $597 million for the three months ending on Mar. 31, compared to $514 million in the same period of 2005.
Cooper said its acquisition of Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Passenger Tire Co. Ltd. and Cooper Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Co., Ltd. increased sales by $48 million in the quarter, and higher prices, improved product mix, and higher unit sales volumes in North America and Europe added $39 million.
The 4th Citexpo will be held in China from Sep 6-8, 2006 to suit the marketing schedule of the majority of the exhibitors and buyers. Over 200 exhibitors will showcase their latest products and technology in an 8,000 square metre exhibition area. According to the organisers, over 80 per cent of available stand space has already been sold.
Press sources say that Yokohama Rubber is considering getting into the rubber processing sector in an effort to secure supply of natural rubber and to reduce rising raw material costs. General Manager of Corporate Purchasing and Strategic Sourcing, Keiichi Sekiya, said the Yokohama “wants to get closer to the rubber plantation people,” adding: “it doesn’t mean we want to get into the plantation business.” Should the company buy some land for growing rubber trees, this would only be for research and development purposes, he said, with the results shared with rubber growers.
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