Yokohama Tire Corporation has entered a multi-year contract to sponsor a US-based Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tournament. The tournament will become known as the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic and this year will be held in Prattville, Alabama between 18 and 21 September.
Yokohama India Pvt. Ltd. is exhibiting at Auto Expo 2014. The Motor Show runs from 5-11 February and is being held in Greater Noida, India. This year will mark Yokohama India’s fourth straight appearance at the expo since it first exhibited in 2008. India’s Auto Expo, purportedly the nation’s largest motor show, is held every other year.
On Friday 17th January members of Point-S, the leading of independent tyre dealer network, attend their annual conference and gala dinner at the Menzies Welcombe Hotel in Stratford upon Avon.
In order to strengthen its Japanese-market retreading activities and meet an anticipated increase in demand for retreaded tyres, on 1 January 2014 Yokohama Rubber integrated its two domestic retreading businesses into a single entity. The new Japanese retreading company is called Yokohama Tire Retread Co., Ltd. and sees Sanyo Retread Co., Ltd. merged into the larger Yokohama Tire East Japan Retread Co., Ltd. operation. Atao Kishi, former head of Yokohama Rubber’s commercial tyre development division, has been named the new operation’s president.
In summer 2013, Yokohama Rubber began building a passenger car tyre factory in China’s Jiangsu Province, the company shared today. The new plant is being erected adjacent to a truck and bus tyre factory operated by Chinese subsidiary Suzhou Yokohama Tire Co., Ltd., and is expected to begin production in April 2014. Production capacity will grow incrementally until it reaches six million tyres per annum by the end of 2017. Total investment in the plant will amount to approximately ¥26.5 billion (£153.7 million).
An industry-driven tyre stewardship scheme was launched by the Australian Government today. The scheme is backed by the Australian Tyre Industry Council and has been established with funding from tyre importers Continental, Goodyear Dunlop, Michelin, Pirelli, Toyo and Yokohama. It aims to tackle the environmental challenges arising from used tyres.
The World Touring Car Championship’s James Nash, who claimed the new WTCC Yokohama Trophy, was a guest at the Yokohama booth during the recent Autosport International Show in Birmingham. During the show Yokohama HPT, the brand’s British division, displayed a full range of high performance race and road tyres alongside one of the vehicles from […]
Expansion work on Yokohama Rubber’s ‘TireTestCenter of Asia’ is complete. The company reported on 16 December that a ceremony marking the conclusion of related construction was held at the site on 9 October. The expansion adds four new test courses – a 2.5-kilometre dry-test course and a 1.5-kilometre wet-test course for handling tests, a skid pad and a corner hydroplaning test road. Yokohama says the proving ground expansion enables it to conduct complete tests of its tyres’ handling and vibration performance.
Yokohama has published details of a number of personnel changes scheduled to take effect on 1 January 2014. These include Director Yuju Goto swapping his role as Tire Business president for that of Chief Tire Production Officer (he will remain Head of the Tire Production division). Atao Kishi will become President of Yokohama Tire Retread Co. Ltd, while Sigeru Kagami and Osamu Mikami will be made corporate officers; they will respectively also be appointed to the roles of Head of the Tire Production Technology division and Head of the Tire Overseas Sales & Marketing division.
According to a report from market research and consulting company TechSci Research, three tyre majors account for more than 70 per cent of tyre sales in Thailand. Bridgestone, Michelin and Goodyear dominate a market that is expected to grow significantly in the next few years and generate revenues up to around US$17 billion by the end of 2018. However the report, titled ‘Thailand Tyre Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2018’, opines that companies such as Yokohama, Sumitomo and Continental tyres are providing these three with “tough competition”.
When Ashley Croft used his farewell Tyre Wholesaler Group annual chairman’s speech to ask how we define what a “premium” tyre is, he captured something of this year’s tyre industry zeitgeist (click here for full coverage of the speech). Of the speech didn’t just deal with this question – it touched on labelling, part worns and what the UK industry is doing to improve the availability of good market data too – but, if the market ruminations of a number of key players are anything to go by, Croft wasn’t the only one to have been raising this question during the last 12 months.
The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd. And Kumho Tire Co., Inc. signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on 29 November. The companies report that they have agreed to open discussions relating to technology exchanges and a capital alliance based on “cross-shareholdings”.
Litchfield has released its latest ‘cloning’ Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) sensors, designed for GT-R owners needing to run multiple wheel-sets. Aimed at solving a problem for its GT-R driving clients, Litchfield says the sensors will be a useful addition to extra winter or track wheels, as drivers will not have to recode the sensors each time they are change.
According to news reported by the Bangkok Post today, Yokohama Rubber intends to double capacity at its Rayong factory in Thailand; the stated reason for this increase is to equip the country as a base from where the ASEAN region can be supplied.
Two tyre makers have both pledged aid to support relief efforts in the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan on 8 November, and a third is contributing to aid efforts following the earthquake there three weeks earlier.
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.