India
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.
(Akron/Tire Review) Goodyear India Ltd. has nearly completed a major expansion at its passenger tyre plant in Aurangabad, India, boosting its annual capacity to 1.8 million tyres. Goodyear hopes the increase in radial production, due to start in June, will help it become one of India’s top selling tyre brands.
(India/Rubber Asia) At the end of what seems like an agonizingly endless wait, the gates of the Dunlop factory at Sahagunj, in the eastern State of Communist-ruled West Bengal, and the one at Ambattur near Chennai in the southern State of Tamil Nadu, are set to re-open in April, if nothing else intervenes in between, local media reports said.
“Maintenance work will start probably by early early-April at both the units,” an official spokesman for the Ruia group, which now controls Dunlop India Ltd. (DIL), has said.
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.
January 2006 saw total tyre production in India rise 9 per cent to 5,623,048 tyres compared with January 2005. The figures calculated by the Indian Tyre Manufacturer’s association (ATMA) show that motorcycle tyre sales were up 15 per cent totalling 1,801,839 units. This particularly rapid growth is largely explained by the reclassification of moped tyres under the motorcycle heading, but also signifies production growth in the segment.
Passenger car tyre production increased to 1,230,869 units up 16 per cent from the same time last year. Truck and bus and light truck production increased to 946,730 (up 8 per cent) and 352,967 (up 14 per cent) respectively. Perhaps unsurprisingly in light of the current global shortage, OTR tyre production increased 37 per cent to 10,811 units in January.
Much has been written about the emerging Indian, Chinese and Russian markets, but what about South America? This continent is full of potential, something that is demonstrated by the fact that all the major players are there (Pirelli, Goodyear and Bridgestone/Firestone being particularly strong) and are already positioning themselves for the next market explosion. However for all its potential, the continent can also be described as tumultuous – at the end of November 2005, for example, Bridgestone/Firestone had to quell a violent dispute at a plant in Venezuela.
The International Rubber Study Group has announced that the Government of India will join the Group on 1 April 2006. India’s total rubber consumption has been increasing steadily since 1960 at a rate of 6.8 per cent/year to reach 968,000 tonnes in 2004. This makes India the fourth largest rubber consuming country, behind China, the USA and Japan.
Delphi Product & Service Solutions has established a joint venture with Roulunds Braking Systems SAS, a leading European supplier of OE and aftermarket automotive friction components. The new company, called Alliance Friction Technologies, has already developed a purpose-built manufacturing facility near New Delhi (India), dedicated to supplying Delphi with OE equivalent quality brake pads for sale throughout Europe and to other countries supplied by Delphi’s European operations.
Pirelli has come top in JD Power’s South African tyre satisfaction survey. But it wasn’t all good news for the tyre business. The research also found that many of the tyre brands fitted to new vehicles are below the industry average in terms of local customer satisfaction.
Pirelli retained the top spot for a second consecutive year with an overall CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index) score of 841 based on a 1000-point scale. Five index points separate Pirelli from second-place Michelin (836). Bridgestone (815) and Yokohama (798) also achieved above industry average scores. However, Firestone (769), Goodyear (780), Dunlop (781) and Continental (789) tyres were all ranked below the average of 790. The two lowest-ranked tyre brands were Korea’s Kumho (766) and Hankook (752). BFGoodrich, General, India, Kelly, Kleber, Toyo and Uniroyal were all included in the study, but not ranked due to insufficient sample size.
Not everything that’s bad for the OTR end consumer is automatically bad for the retreaders of these tyres, too. On the contrary, sometimes it could even help them increase their sales figures substantially. In earlier years tyres for earthmovers have literally been driven run-through. Today, consumers “somehow try to keep them rolling” for as long as possible admitting that they have paid good money for a good product. As a consequence, the Rösler group – market leader in Europe in this OTR niche – has been able to increase its annual number of retreads by about 30 per cent. On the one hand this growth has been induced by the general market expansion, on the other hand sales figures have been triggered by increasingly urgent demand on the part of the customers that were unable to get hold of any new OTR tyres whatsoever.
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