After almost eight years, Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. (SRI) has won the lawsuit it filed against Italian manufacturer TEK Automotive S.r.l. concerning the infringement of SRI’s patents on emergency tyre puncture repair kit technology.
At a ceremony attended by Slovenia’s Prime Minister, Dr Miro Cerar, and other national and local dignitaries, Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. (SRI) broke ground on 17 May at its newest site. The plant project in Logatec, Slovenia focuses on non-tyre production, specifically the manufacture of rubber parts for medical applications, and builds upon the company’s acquisition of Lonstroff AG in 2015.
Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. (SRI) has finalised its motorsports schedule for 2018, and plans for this year will see it continue supplying its Falken and Dunlop brand tyres to various two-wheel and four-wheel race categories.
In the past financial year, Sumitomo Rubber Industries (SRI) significantly increased its sales revenue, and the company’s European business played its part in achieving this result. Overall sales rose 16.0 per cent to 756.70 billion yen (£5.1 billion).
The Tokyo Motor Show 2017 is currently taking place, and visitors to the biennial event are amongst the first to see Sumitomo Rubber Industries’ new Smart Tyre Concept from Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd (SRI). The aim of this new concept, shares the tyre maker, is to “aid in the development of tyres that provide balanced safety and environmental performance at higher levels than ever before.” The launch will be followed by the commercial introduction of tyres containing technologies seen in the Smart Tyre Concept, as well as further concept products, over the coming decade.
In response to recently reported news about plans for its factory in the USA, Sumitomo Rubber Industries (SRI) states that the plant in Buffalo, New York will deliver original equipment Dunlop tyres to Japanese car manufacturers in the future. A representative of SRI stressed to Tyrepress.com that it is the make to order tyre production commissioned by Goodyear that will reduce and then stop entirely in 2018.
Sumitomo Rubber Industries has announced it will set up a new non-tyre production site in Slovenia. The facility will manufacture rubber parts for medical applications and be set up as a subsidiary of Lonstroff AG, a firm acquired by Sumitomo Rubber in 2015. The Lonstroff Medical Elastomers plant will be built with an investment of 34 million euros and is expected to enter production in April 2019.
A further evolution of the proprietary DWS (Deflation Warning System) technology from Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. (SRI) makes it possible to detect road conditions, tyre loads and other information without the need for dedicated sensors, the Japanese manufacturer reports. SRI calls this new tyre sensing technology ‘Sensing Core’, and says it obtains the above information by analysing the wheel speed signals that are generated when a tyre rotates.
Researchers from Sumitomo Rubber Industries (SRI) and two Japanese universities have received an award from Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The Science and Technology (Development Category) award was bestowed upon the five researchers during the 2017 Commendations for Science and Technology and was given for their contribution towards tyre development through the coordinated utilisation of advanced technologies.
Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. (SRI) has completed the process of acquiring the Dunlop brand business of the UK based Sports Direct International plc (SDI). As announced on 27 December 2016, SRI reached an agreement with SDI to acquire their trademark rights to the Dunlop brand in various countries and territories, as well as SDI’s Dunlop sporting goods and licensing business, for the purchase price of US$137.5 million. The transaction was finalised on 3 April 2017.
Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. (SRI) has completed its acquisition of Micheldever Group Ltd., having purchased 128,787 shares from Graphite Capital Management LLP – an enterprise value of £215 million. Upon the transaction’s closure, SRI owns a business that generated sales of approximately £320 million in the last financial year and is the holding company of Micheldever Tyre Services Ltd, an operation that employs 1,574 people and sells some 6 million tyres a year.
Since gaining a much greater degree of freedom to conduct business in North America and Europe with the dissolution of its global alliance with Goodyear in October 2015, the Sumitomo Rubber Group has striven to enhance its R&D, production and sales infrastructure to better serve these markets. As part of these efforts, the tyre maker has built a new, 3,500 square metre USA Technical Center on the grounds of its Tonawanda factory in New York State. Sumitomo Rubber Industries reports that this facility will become fully operational in January 2017. The company is also moving forward with the preparations for a Europe Technical Center, which it expects to be fully operational as of September 2017.
On 5 October, Sumitomo Rubber (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (SRT), the Sumitomo Rubber Group’s tyre manufacturing and sales subsidiary in Thailand, celebrated the tenth anniversary of operations at its passenger car and agricultural/industrial tyre plant in Rayong Province. The festivities were attended by around 300 guests, including the Governor of Rayong Province, representatives from various government agencies, business partners, customers and factory staff, as well as Ikuji Ikeda, president of Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd (SRI).
Japan’s Sumitomo Rubber Industries (SRI) has signed up as a participant in the International Rubber Study Group’s Sustainable Natural Rubber Initiative (SNR-i). As a result, the tyre maker says it has “now committed itself to enacting measures in conformity with the initiative’s guidelines.”
Production capacity for passenger car and light truck tyres at Sumitomo Rubber Industries’ (SRI) Tonawanda factory in the US will double by the end of 2019 as part of a US$87 million investment the company will make over the coming four years. The Tonawanda site came under SRI ownership following the dissolution of the Japanese manufacturer’s global alliance with Goodyear Tire and Rubber last October, and the capacity increase will facilitate the tyre maker’s growing reliance upon the plant for meeting North American market demand.
If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com. Or click below to continue on Tyrepress.