India
The Indian Oil Corporation has entered a joint-venture agreement with Taiwan’s TSRC Corporation and Japan’s Corporation to set up a synthetic rubber factory in India. According to Taiwan’s Central News Agency, the three companies will hold respective 50, 30 and 20 per cent stakes in a joint-venture factory that is planned to produce 200,000 tonnes of synthetic rubber a year for the tyre industry.
Indian tyre maker MRF Ltd reports that the lockout at its factory in Kottayam, Kerala state, was lifted on the morning of June 24. Two days earlier the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange it had implemented the lockout on account of “labour unrest in the factory.” While MRF’s own announcements do not elaborate on the issue, The Financial Express newspaper's coverage of the incident cites a union source, who explains the lockout as being the “fallout of a dispute between an employee and a supervisor over alleged unauthorised leave.” Specifically, the anonymous union source alleges the employee was not permitted to go on duty on June 18 and other workers then staged a walkout as a mark of solidarity. The plant is said to have lost around Rs220 million (£3 million) during the four days it was out of operation, the financial daily added.
Austrian retreading materials supplier Kraiburg sees the market for HGV retreads in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and in Dubai in particularly, as offering “unequalled” opportunities. For retreading businesses standing one’s ground in such a limited sized market when competing with a large number of rivals was hard enough when the economy was still booming and much trickier in the current climate against the backdrop of the financial crisis. Against all the odds, Kraiburg reports that Standard Retreads can now look back on a “five-year success story.”
The buy-up of automotive component company’s by India’s Ruia Group is said to be continuing. The Economic Times reports the company is in discussions regarding the purchase of Autoline Industries, a Pune based vehicle body product manufacturer. Autoline Industries achieved revenues of Rs 6.6 billion (£88.8 million) in the last financial year, with some 85 per cent of its income coming from Tata Motors. The Ruia Group, who owns the Dunlop, Falcon and Monotona tyre brands in India, has already purchased six automotive component companies since 2008.
In order to recognise and reward fleet operators who fuel the growth of India’s economy, Apollo Tyres has introduced the Apollo Fleet of the Year Awards. Through these awards, Apollo intends to annually honour commercial vehicle fleets that operate in India and encourage the uptake of innovative practices within the sector. The tyre maker says it is “looking to create a platform for information exchange and sharing of best practices within the transportation industry, enabling more and more fleet owners to move up the value chain.” The first awards ceremony, covering four categories, will be held in September 2011.
The longest-serving Continental AG board member, Hans-Joachim Nikolin (55), leaves the company’s Executive Board at the end of July and its youngest member, Nikolai Setzer (40), will take over a combined tyre business and thus lead the company’s most successful and currently highest turnover-generating division. The company’s business unit structure has decreased at a management level to adapt with future requirements and now benefits the previously independently-led truck tyre division, which in many past years failed to meet expectations and suffered under the griping of Nikolin’s fellow board members Wennemer and Hippe. During that time, numerous threats were allegedly made to sell off the entire commercial vehicle tyre division should it prove unable to rapidly achieve an EBIT margin of or near double figures. Such threats placed Dr. Hans-Joachim in a very helpless position as yield-hungry analysts could have all too easily interpreted them as promises.
Truck and bus tyre production has commenced at Bridgestone’s Indore factory in India’s Madhya Pradesh State. The Bridgestone India facility, which has been producing passenger car tyres since 1998, was expanded to cater for the country’s growing demand for truck and bus radials through an Rs 1,700 million (£22.8 million) investment. Bridgestone India anticipates producing around 200 TBR tyres per day at the plant by the end of this year and twice that number by mid-2012.
Despite a later than originally anticipated timeframe, the manufacture of Vredestein brand tyres is still expected to begin in India before the end of 2011. Satish Sharma, the chief of India operations for Vredestein parent company Apollo Tyres, has been quoted as saying “we may start rolling out Vredestein tyres from our Chennai or Vadodara factory in three to six months.” He noted, however, that initial production quantities would be very low.
Pelmar Engineering Ltd has announced that its annual conference will take place Israel between 19 until 23 June 2011. The last conference was held from 12 – 13 February 2010 in Koln, Germany; held just after the Tire Technology Expo Cologne. The conference also marks the 45th Anniversary of the Pelmar Group and the change in management with Hagai Peled taking over as CEO from his father, Jacob Peled, who will remain as executive chairman of the group.
Infrastructure and tyre usage in the Middle East is very similar to that in India, says Apollo Tyres, and this is the accepted reason why its products have enjoyed a high level of acceptance throughout the region. In total, the Middle East accounts for some 30 per cent of the Indian tyre maker’s export revenues, and in the last years it has built up a 23-partner distribution network there spanning 14 countries. Now, Apollo Tyres has extended its Middle East presence with the opening of its first office outside the company’s operations in India, the Netherlands and South Africa. This new Dubai-based office will serve as a hub for distributing Apollo’s India-manufactured tyres.
Automechanika 2011 features a strong contingent of Indian tyre manufacturers and distributors including well known names such as JK Tyre, BKT and Emrald, to name just three. As the show organisers expanded the number of exhibitors many times over at the fair in general, it appears to have been a conscious decision to invite tyre makers from the subcontinent to the tyre halls in a bid to attract increasingly influential companies in addition to leading Chinese firms such as Hangzhou Zhongce, Shandong Linglong and Sailun.
Leading forged aluminium wheel brand xlite has announced that it will become available worldwide due to an exclusive trademark agreement between its European distributor, Motor Wheel Service, and manufacturer Wheels India. Under the terms of the ten-year agreement between MWS and Wheels India, all of the forged aluminium wheels produced by the manufacturer will feature xlite branding on the products, boxes and cleaning kits, creating a global standard for the end user.
In pursuit of the Italian garage equipment brand’s international intentions, Corghi has released details of the development strategy the firm is pursuing. According to Corghi representatives, the plan centres on so-called BRIC markets (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as the main guideline for growth. And for this reason the company reports it is making “significant investment in both the manufacturing and commercial side” of the business, investments that are said to be “already starting to bear fruit.”
Apollo Tyres has opened what it says is “India’s first full-service commercial vehicle tyre outlet.” Located on the outskirts of Delhi, the first Apollo CV Zone was inaugurated by company chairman Onkar S Kanwar on May 30; the tyre maker now plans to establish a network of outlets across India.
Management at Apollo Tyres are considering the purchase of rubber plantations as a potential means of countering ever increasing rubber prices. On May 27, the tyre maker’s vice-chairman and managing director Neeraj Kanwar told Indian publication The Economic Times that “as far as buying rubber plantations, or for that matter any kind of backward integration, is concerned, we are always open to possibilities depending upon the need of the hour.”
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