Apollo expects full capacity at Hungary plant by autumn 2018

Mumbai, India – Apollo Tyres is expecting to ramp up its recently-opened production plant in Hungary to reach 16,000 passenger car tires by second half of its financial year 2019, starting April 2018.

In a 7 Aug conference call for first quarter 2018, chief financial officer Gaurav Kumar said the first truck tire – even as a test tire – was not expected to roll out before “sometime in financial year 2019”.

In terms of product mix at the Hungary plant, Kumar said supplies to OEMs had already started but declined to give further specifics or names.

“And going forward those numbers will increase as we are looking to get into more OEMs as part of our overall strategy,” he added.

According the financial officer, Apollo expects the Hungary plant to stabilise by the final quarter of the current financial year ending March 2018.

In medium term, however, Kumar expects the OEM-replacement mix in Europe to be about 20-80 for passenger car segment.

At the moment, the mix is 100% replacement tires.

The Indian tire maker officially opened its €475-million production plant in Gyongyoshalasz, Hungary in April.

Apollo’s sixth worldwide will have the capacity to produce 5.5 million passenger and light truck tires and 675,000 commercial vehicle tires per year once phase I is complete. It will produce both the Vredestein and Apollo brand of tires for the European market.