It is little over a year since Davanti’s launch at the Autopromotec show, and within this short space of time the brand has gained a foothold in the UK and Irish tyre markets. Now the team behind Davanti have their sights on Europe, and to help establish the brand there have appointed Michael Eckert Davanti’s European sales director.
The Landsail LS588 UHP – and indeed all Landsail car tyres – have enjoyed rapid and consistent growth during the last few years. Despite the parent Sentury Tire factory having only being founded in 2009, seven-digit UK volumes demonstrate the brand is a force to be reckoned with in this European market at least. In the competitive UK ultra high performance sector, Landsail offers the LS588, which company representatives say offers “premium performance at competitive price”.
The launch of the Davanti brand took place at Autopromotec in Bologna in May last year. 12 months later, company representatives are celebrating the brand’s growth, saying the Davanti brand has “literally taken the UK and European tyre market by storm”. As far as the high performance sector is concered, the brand’s growth has been supported by a series new products led by the Davanti DX640 Ultra High Performance pattern.
Merseyside-based tyre wholesaler and company behind the Davanti private brand, Oak Tyres, has relocated to a new and larger facility in Manchester. The new warehouse in Trafford Park is located not far from Oak Tyres’ existing facility and quadruples the company’s capacity in the Greater Manchester area. As well as providing the wholesaler with additional capacity, 20 new jobs have been created through the project. The new warehouse opens in early May and is expected to help Oak Tyres to increase its market share across the Northwest of England.
Davanti has announced the upcoming launch of two new tyres in January. The company – part of the Oak Tyres Group – says the new models are a result of increasing demand for Davanti from the market. The two tyres are the DX740, a commercial van tyre suitable for SUV applications, and the DX240, designed for smaller passenger car applications.
Oak Tyres has undergone some dynamic changes this year as it adapts its business to a shifting wholesale landscape. The most radical of the company’s developments in 2015 has been the launch of its fully owned private brand Davanti, which Oak’s management most recently supported at CITExpo 2015 in Shanghai. To accommodate operations associated with the new brand, Oak Group Holdings was formed, with the Oak Tyres 100 per cent wholesale business now under this umbrella alongside Davanti Tyres, and promotional merchandise producer Davanti World. With the Davanti product designed as “an opportunity for margin”, in the words of general manager Larry Cross, Oak Tyres’ brand portfolio has increased its scope. Stating that “we have a very clear, defined brand strategy at Oak, which we have refined continuously over the past five years,” Peter Cross, commercial manager at Oak Tyres, told Tyres & Accessories a bit more about the company’s current outlook, and how the second tier “exclusive brand programmes” are offering customers the opportunity “to maximise their profits”.
The 2015 edition of the China International Tire Expo opened on 9 September in Shanghai with around 350 exhibitors – the show’s most ever. The sustained growth represented by these numbers has led to the decision by organiser Reliable International Exhibition Services to transfer CITExpo to the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center (SWEECC), built in the centre of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo site. The show also boasts strong continuity, with around 80 per cent of 2014 exhibitors back in 2015, according to Reliable; in past years the organiser has come to expect a similar proportion of its customers booking their space for the following year during CITExpo.
Oak Tyres, the independent distributor for tyres and tyre accessories based in the North West, is celebrating its 35th anniversary this month.
Delivering to the fast fit industry, Oak Tyres started trading in 1980 and over the course of three and a half decades has established itself as a leading, independently-run tyre wholesale distributor. Oak has built its reputation on carrying an unrivalled stock of all premium brands, whilst also becoming exclusive UK agents for leading high quality import brands such as Evergreen, Landsail and Headway.
Davanti has appointed Sean Maddocks as sales director for UK and Ireland; he will be starting his role with immediate effect.
The new Davanti brand, which distributor Oak Tyres launched at Autopromotec in Bologna at the end of May reportedly received “rave reviews” from contacts and customers.
With impressive EU labels boasting strong wet-grip performance and consistently low noise ratings across the range, visitors and exhibitors alike were eager to see the tyres for first time.
It’s only a month until the first tyres in the new Davanti range are shown to the public at Autopromotec in Bologna, and Liverpool-based creative agency Liquid has expressed the pride it feels in presenting the brand to consumers. Liquid says it has been involved in every aspect of developing the brand – the agency was responsible for generating the name Davanti, designing the logo and developing all marketing and advertising materials. It has also worked with traditional and social media to elevate brand recognition.
Landsail Tyres has confirmed its sponsorship of the 2015 Performance Car Show, in association with Autocar and PistonHeads.com. The leading UK exhibition dedicated to enthusiasts of sports and performance cars, held at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham, on 8-11 January 2015. The brand, manufactured by Qingdao’s Sentury Tire and distributed in the UK by Grouptyre member Oak Tyres, will communicate with visitors about the depth and breadth of its range, with high performance, ultra high performance, and SUV fitments. The manufacturer, founded in 2009, has been moving to differentiate itself in a populous field of Chinese tyre brands selling into the UK. At the beginning of December it stated that it would offer tyres for magazine testing to prove the quality of its products, having presented some eye-catching European tyre labels at its Reifen debut.
How does a tyre manufacturer grow from nothing to having large-scale international sales and a few percentage points of market share in a country like the UK in just five years? The answer is by starting with a blank piece of paper and by virtue of some strategic acquisitions.
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