India
Apollo Tyres is planning to import radial tyres for luxury cars like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Volkswagen from the company’s manufacturing facility in South Africa, rediff.com has reported. The local business news source reports that Indian radial production could halt at some point in the coming months.
Following Indian manufacturer, Apollo Tyres’ announcement that it has officially completed its acquisition of Dunlop International (DI) Tyres & Acccessories’ Southern African editorial partner, SA Treads, flew to DI’s headquarters in Durban to interview CE Mike Hankinson, MD Pierre Dreyer and Apollo joint managing director and CEO, Neeraj Kanwar.
(India/Rubber Asia) Goodyear India is quietly getting into the news again. After years of lack-lustre performance, the company is making rapid strides in select segments and is charting out aggressive growth strategies. Antonio M.Capellini, chairman and managing director of Goodyear India, has reason to be happy. Despite severe competition from multinational and local brands, the company has carved out a niche market for itself. In the OTR tyre segment it’s the market leader in the country. With an 18 per cent market share in the passenger car radial segment, it is the only tyre company in the country approved by all car manufacturers for OEM supplies.
Apollo Tyres, is reportedly planning acquisitions in Europe and South East Asia in the current financial year. “We will be interested in acquiring companies that will synergise the group’s expertise in the areas of manufacturing, overseas markets and new technology,” Neeraj Kanwar, joint managing director, Apollo Tyres, told India Business Line.
Acquisition will also be a strategy to increase the proportion of radialisation in the company’s truck and passenger car tyres. In January, the company acquired South Africa-based tyre manufacturer Dunlop Tyres international, a radial tyre manufacturer for roughly £36 million, 50 million euros.
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.
Falcon Tyres Ltd has recorded a 300 per cent increase in net profit since it was bought by the Indian Ruia group. Falcon Tyres registered a net profit of 36.3 million rupees compared with 9.2 million in 2004 – 2005. Total company turnover stood at 2.55 billion rupees against 2.19 billion the same time last year. The company announced 25 per cent dividend for its shareholders, which was 2.50 rupees per share, the highest in its history.
According to JK Tyres’ CFO, A K Kinra, a 7 – 8 per cent price increase should offset increased rubber costs. “The increase in the cost is very high. There is no way the tyre industry can sustain on its own, so to take care of that cost increase, it has to go for a price increase. That has compelled us to increase tyre prices also,” Mr Kinra told India television news sources.
In India, Mr. A K Kinra, Chief Financial Officer of JK Tyre, has said that the company will increase tyre prices by up to eight per cent from 1st June, explaining that the step was necessary to offset growing raw material costs, notably the rising price of rubber. He said that, in Malaysia, the price of rubber has risen by 85 per cent in a year and, as rubber constitutes up to one third of the cost of raw materials, the price increase was inevitable.
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.
Apollo Tyres has launched a new range of DuraTread retreading materials for commercial vehicles in Southern India. The range, which Apollo says shows it is a step closer to being a complete tyre solution provider, will be produced at Apollo’s Kalamassery plant near Cochin. DuraTreads will subsequently be available across the country by leveraging Apollo’s operations network.
A bout of profit taking early in the week in metal and automotive stocks, among others, led to a fall on the financial markets of India. The BSE Auto Index closed down 143.35 points (equal to 2.61 per cent) with auto stocks such as MRF, Tata Motors, Hind Motors, Apollo Tyres and TVS Motor all falling in value.
Apollo Tyres Ltd has formally concluded the process of acquiring Dunlop Tyres International (Pyt) Ltd (Dunlop South Africa) in a £36 million all cash deal. Apollo’s board of directors had approved this acquisition on January 31, 2006, at a board meeting in Mumbai, India. All regulatory approvals in India and South Africa alongside the transfer of shares have already been completed.
MRF moves up three rank positions from 2005 to rank highest in customer satisfaction in the JD Power Asia Pacific 2006 India Original Tire Customer Satisfaction Index (TCSI) Study. This is the fourth time MRF has ranked highest in the study. The study, now in its sixth year, analyzes perceptions of new-vehicle buyers on five critical factors: appearance of tyre, durability of tyres, ride quality, traction and handling.
Dunlop India is planning to set up an industrial rubber products plant at its existing truck and bus tyre manufacturing facility at Ambattur in Chennai. The company currently has an industrial products division at Sahagunj facility in West Bengal, the Indian Hindu Business Line Newspaper has reported.
Michelin is to become the first major manufacturer in Scotland to commit to using renewable energy, with the construction of two wind turbines at its Dundee plant, says an article in The Scotsman. In a battle against being hurt further by rising energy costs, the turbines – which are expected to be operational by July – will provide up to 4MW of power on a windy day, meeting the entire Dundee factory’s needs. Over the course of the year it is forecast to provide about a third of the energy needs, cutting electricity bills by about 8 per cent, once running costs are accounted for.
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