Hangzhou, China - ZC Rubber Group has set out an ambitious set of targets for the coming years, building on what chairman Shen Jinrong described as a year of record achievements despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
Addressing a China distributors conference on 30 Dec, Shen said 2020 had been “a remarkable year” for ZC Rubber, with new growth, products, and technologies.
Global sales, said Shen, totaled nearly 30 billion yuan, from output including: over 21.5 million truck/bus radial tires; 44 million passenger car and light truck tires; and 4.2 million special bias tires.
“We have achieved the historical result since our establishment, with breakthroughs in production capacity, sales revenue, and economic performance," the ZC Rubber leader told the conference.
Reviewing the Chinese group’s technology-position in its three main tire sectors, the chairman said the design and manufacturing capacity of ZC Rubber’s truck/bus radial tires “can be compared with the world's advanced level.”
As for passenger car tires, Shen expressed confidence that the performance of the group’s newly launched Flagship series could “reach or even exceed that of some top brand products."
Meanwhile, he said the bias tires segment had shown “explosive” sales growth: "This year has become our fastest-growing year for bias tires. And we will continue to explore more application scenarios for them."
Shen went on to state that ZC Rubber would have new plants in China and Thailand “enter various production stages” and had plans to establish a second overseas plant.
“The ‘future factory’ to be built in Hangzhou is a government-model project, aiming to accelerate its digital transformation,” he said. “Also entering the project are China's well-known companies Alibaba and Hikvision.”
Shen also spotlighted the group’s plans to build the ZC Rubber Digital Brain for overall industrial digitalization in the next five years. This ‘smart network platform’ will link manufacturing, supply-chain, equipment, channels, services, users and marketing activities.
Further details of ZC Rubber’s ambitious programme in the Jan/Feb issue of ERJ magazine.
