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: When was the last time you took a look at your car tyre? We mean a good, hard look at your car tyre to determine if it was still road worthy?

Or, are you like most passenger vehicle owners not interested in the functional attributes of your tyre, not even in knowing which brand was used by the car manufacturer as long as it works?

Take our word for it, all that is going to change soon.

Companies under pressure from rising competition and cheap imports are holding out a whole lot of freebies. The changing ownership profile and the fact that the passenger car market is growing much faster than the commercial, is also goading tyre manufacturers to change track. They are hawking their products at branded retail formats, taking orders on phone or through websites and giving in to brand proliferation in the manner of an FMCG company to match every driver’s skill and style. That’s where you have tyre exchange schemes and easy finance options for getting a gleaming set of hot wheels.

Not surprisingly, the new name for this once “unsexy” category is ‘Fast Moving Consumer Durables’ (FMCD).

According to a Credit Analysis & Research (CARE) report for 2007, the Indian tyre industry produced 736 lakh units of tyres garnering Rs 19,000 crore in FY07. MRF was the market leader (22% marketshare) followed by Apollo Tyres (21%). The other big players were JK Tyre & Industries (18%) and Ceat (13%).

“Fierce competition, low bargaining and declining margins are leading top players to focus on branding and strengthening their distribution network in order to increase marketshare,” says Subrato Basu, business manager for commercial tyre at Ceat.

As everyone knows the tyre industry derives its demand from the automobile industry. While OEM (original equipment manufacturer) market offtake is dependent on the new vehicle sales, replacement market, or what is known as the ‘after market’ demand depends on the total population of vehicles on road, road conditions, vehicle scrapping rules, overloading norms for trucks, average life of tyres and the practice of tyre retreading.