After positioning itself as a market leader in CV tyre market with 30% share, Apollo Tyres Ltd has set a target to become a market leader in car tyres too. The company has embarked upon upping its capacity from 10,000 tyres a day to 45,000 tyres a day in the next 14 to 18 months and hopes to become the market leader in the next two years, said Satish Sharma, chief, India operations, Apollo Tyres.
Addressing select presspersons after inaugurating its second retail format store here on Monday, he said: ?Our vision is to become a market leader in car tyres too. We have geared up to ramp up our capacity at Baroda plant from 10,000 tyres a day to 15,000 units and is setting up a new greenfield plant at Oragadam near Chennai with an installed capacity of 30,000 tyres a day. In the next 14 to 18 months, our capacity will go up from 10,000 tyres a day to 45,000 tyres a day,? he said.
?Overall, we will be making an investment of Rs 750 crore, including Rs 500 crore at our Chennai plant. We are investing Rs 150 crore at our Baroda plant and another Rs 100 crore at our new OTR tyre plant at Baroda. Both the new plants will commence production during mid-2009,? he said. The Chennai plant is coming up at 150 acres of land and will have 1,000 employees when become fully operational, he added.
Responding to queries, he said the company has drawn four strategies to achieve the market leadership in car tyres, including having diversified product range, roping in more OEMs, setting up retail format stores and building brand through various activities.
?In addition to OEMs like Suzuki, Tata Motors, M&M, General Motors, Skoda, Hyundai, the company is in advanced talks with Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota among others,? he said. The market size of the car tyres per month is estimated to be 13 lakh to 14 lakh and the company is holding 18% market share, he said. OEMs alone garner 55% of the total size while the rest 45% with the retail segment, he pointed out.
On the retail side, he said: ?In the next one year, the company will have 30 car tyre retail format stores across the country as against two now. ??
These stores will be set up in franchisee model, he added. Towards brand equity, he said, the company will sponsor all the programmes of Mahesh Bhubathy sponsored Tennis Academy.
To a specific query on the Hungary plant, he said: ?We are awaiting environ among other clearances from the Hungary government. Once received we will start work on the eruo 200 million, seven-million capacity per annum plant.?