Birmingham, UK – Apollo Tyres has launched a new digital selling platform as part of plans to corner a 5% share of the truck & bus radial (TBR) tire market in Europe.
The launch follows the recent official opening of Apollo’s greenfield tire manufacturing facility in Gyöngyöshalász, Hungary. The unit is initially producing passenger car tires with TBR production scheduled to start there by the end of 2018.
With the investment in Hungary, Apollo will start to make inroads into the European TBR market, according to Benoit Rivallant, group head, global product management, CV & OHT at Apollo Tyres PVT Ltd, based in London.
“There is this capacity [in Hungary] to make 675,000 tires a year and if you do the maths it is roughly 5% market share in Europe,” Rivallant told ERJ in an interview at the Commercial Vehicle Show 2017, in Birmingham, 25-27 April.
“For the time being, these TBR tires are coming from India. But in one year’s time the same tires will be produced in Europe,” the Apollo executive emphasised.
According to Rivallant, Apollo has around 25% of the truck & bus radials market in India. The country, he said, is the third largest truck & bus tire market in the world, and bigger than Europe.