India-based global tyre manufacturer Apollo Tyres is expanding into the truck and bus radial (TBR) tyre segment in Europe with the company launching a new range of tyres in the Commercial Vehicle Show (CV Show 2017) held in Birmingham from April 25 to 27.
In a statement, the company said, “it is the first and only manufacturer to launch its TBR range exclusively online, with a new go-to-market approach.”
Apollo Tyres already has presence in the TBR segment in India. The company has six manufacturing plants globally, including the recently inaugurated greenfield factory in Hungary, along with four R&D centres spread around the world.
“Quality, reliability and performance are central to Apollo Tyres’ philosophy. The company benchmarks against the best in the market and, often, outperforms them,” says Apollo Tyres’ Chief Retail & Marketing Officer, Marco Paracciani.
“However, for the European TBR market, we felt that a strong product offering was not enough as we saw an opportunity to innovate in the go-to-market approach,”Paracciani added.
The launch served as the culmination of the company’s five-year testing and development programme for the Apollo brand of truck-bus radials in the UK and Europe, said Benoit Rivallant, Group Head of Global Product Management for Commercial Vehicles, Apollo Tyres.
“The new range was designed for Europe and extensively tested over 250 million kilometres across six European countries, in a wide range of applications, by around 50 fleets and driver partners,” Rivallant said, adding that streamlining the process was paramount to the success of the project.
“We are finding new ways to provide premium tyres how and when our customers need them, whether directly to the end user or providing new service opportunities for dealers. And of course, even though we are completely online, our customer service teams are always available to help customers, wherever they may be.”
Apollo Tyres pilots the delivery of its new TBR European tyre range in UK, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands, with Germany and other countries soon to follow. However, countries currently outside the scope of delivery can take advantage of online platform by arranging collection from Apollo’s Hamburg warehouse.