Continental Automotive Components India, a part of German-based auto component giant Continental, will enter into Indian after-market tyre business in the second quarter of the current year, a top official of the company said.

Inaugurating the company’s manufacturing facility and R&D centre in Bangalore on Monday, Jay Kunkel, president of Continental Asia and member of the automotive management board of Continental AG, said that the company was studying the Indian tyre market. Initially, the company will import tyres to India from its production facilities in Europe and Malaysia.

The company will target the high-end car tyre market in India, said Markus Distelhoff, managing director of Continental Automotive Components India. In the first year of operations, the company would import around three lakh units of tyres for the Indian after market, he said.

Although the company has six manufacturing units in India, it has not started manufacturing operations for tyres in the country. “We are studying all options to have a tyre manufacturing unit in India, but there are no concrete plans as of now in this regard,” Distelhoff said.

While disclosing its revenue in India, he said the company would grow at a CAGR of 70% in the next five years.

Continental has invested Rs 220 crore at its Bangalore facility. He said the company will invest another 15 million euros of investment at Bangalore operations in the next two years. In the Bangalore plant, 10 different auto electronic components will be developed and produced. The Bangalore plant will produce instrument clusters for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and two-wheelers, immobilizers, engine management systems for diesel and gasoline engines.

He also indicated that a similar size of investment made in Bangalore would be repeated in Pune region too after 2010. But he did not disclose the nature of manufacturing unit proposed in Pune belt. Earlier Kunkel said, “From 2012 onwards nearly one out of two cars worldwide will be manufactured in Asia and much of the growth on the Asian auto market will come from the emerging markets like India and China. Also in the next decade one of the main focuses of the automotive industry will be the so-called megatrend ‘affordable cars’ especially in India and China.” He also said the company is increasing its presence in India to achieve 20-25% of the company’s total sales in Asian region by 2015.