Yokohama opened its first tyre manufacturing unit in India at Bahadurgarh in Haryana with an investment of over Rs 300 crore. The first phase of production is expected to start in the second half of 2014 with a maximum production capacity of 2,000 tyres per day. The company claimed that the plant has the peak capacity of 8,000 tyres per day.
“At we start our production, we are initially focusing on passenger cars and at the later stage we would start manufacturing Suvs tyres and commercial vehicle,” said Takeshi Fujino, MD, Yokohama.
According to Takeshi Fujino, the company is currently supplying tyres to Japanese car manufacturers globally. In India, the company is at nascent stage and has not been supplying to any OEMs. The company is operating at 2 per cent market share. But the company seeing a good growth opportunity in replacement market.
At the current trial production itself, the Yokohama factory employs more than 100 direct employees and will soon grow three folds by the end of 2014. At the new plant the company will manufacture Earth type-1 and it would be catering to most of the car in B B+ and C- segment.
“The Yokohama Earth-1 tyre is especially “Designed for India” keeping the diverse road conditions in mind and will cater to most of the cars in B, B+ and C-segment. It is tough, to take on bad roads but quiet at the same time to provide comfortable ride on smooth roads” further added Fujino.
Yokohama India currently has approx 600 point of sales which also includes 22 Yokohama Club Network (YCN) across length and breadth of India. YCN is a specialised network based on Yokohama’s global philosophy to develop Point Of Sales to provide world class tyre buying experience.
Yokohama India’s plan is to double up the YCN strength by end of 2014. Yokohama India is currently operating on 2 per cent of the total market share. While tube type tyres still contribute a considerable share of the total passenger car radial market, Yokohama India is only competing in the tubeless market. With the fast transformation of market from tube type tyres to tubeless tyres and manufacturing unit coming up, the world’s Eighth tyre manufacturer is looking at 5 per cent market share in the near future to support GD 100
Source: The Econimic Times
Published: 24 Feb 2014