Apollo Tyres to roll out Vredestein brand from Indian facilities soon

With an aggressive business expansion plan in place, Apollo Tyres is set to start manufacturing the Vredestein branded tyres in its Indian facilities in the next couple of months; primarily to cater the export markets in Middle-East and Asia-Pacific region including the key markets of Indonesia and Australia.

“We may start rolling out Vredestein tyres from our Chennai or Vadodara factory in 3-6 months,” Mr Satish Sharma, Chief, India operations, told Business Line in Dubai recently. He, however, clarified that initially such productions will be in very small quantities.

The strategy is simple. Apollo will enter the brand conscious radial markets in West Asia and Asia Pacific with Vredestein positioned in the premium category, followed by Apollo to ensure a share of different value segments.

“Internationally we price ‘Apollo' somewhere between Bridgestone and Hankook,” he said.

The group is currently sourcing the high value tyres from the Netherlands-based Apollo Vredestein BV (AVBV) for sales in the Middle-East markets like Lebanon and Israel.

“In the future we will export Vredestein tyres to the Gulf countries from Indian operations,” Mr Sharma said. With cheap petrol – cheaper than a bottle of packaged water – Gulf countries are major users of fuel-guzzling four-wheel drive passenger vehicles, popularly referred as 4 X 4 vehicles, requiring high quality tyres.

Having established itself as a technology player, the company plans to launch a twin attack (with Vredestein and Apollo) to grab a sizable pie of the lucrative high value passenger radial market.

The approach should remain the same for grabbing a share of the premium passenger car tyre market of Indonesia. With oil priced slightly higher than in Dubai or Abu Dhabi but less than half the retail price in India; and, Indonesia enjoys riding the mid and premium segment cars.

“This is a competitive market. However, having done business in Europe, we are confident of the value proposition of our car radial portfolio,” an Apollo official said.

In addition to car radials, the company is already trying grab a share of the large high value off-the-road tyre segment in the country.

The equations are different for the developed Australian market, which is quality conscious and behaves in the same way as European markets.

With production costs in Australia touching prohibitively high levels, the country is emerging as an export destination for the global tyre industry.

Apollo is expecting the European credentials of its brands to give it an initial thrust in the Australian market place.

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