JK Tyre to raise prices

JK Tyre plans to increase tyre prices once again as input (petroleum, rubber and butyl) cost has gone up. Also the company is eyeing the bus/truck radial tyre original equitment (OE) business in India.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Vikram Malhotra, general manager, sales and marketing, JK Industries, said the company incresed tyre prices by 2 per cent a month ago and once again is contemplating a hike of 2 to 3 per cent as there is no abatement of rising input cost.

Also, to get closer to the customer, the company has initiated 'fleet management' services for companies and fleet operators by posting a company engineer at the customer premises. As part of the service, the engineer takes care of usage of tyres right from fitment to scrap.

"So far, the company has signed up with 60 fleet operators in the country owning 5,000 or more buses/trucks," said Malhotra and added "we have set a target to reach 100 fleets by 2006 March."

"Catering to state road transport companies in a big business for us," he said and added that the company enjoys 85 per cent of the market by servicing major road transport companies like KSRTC, APSRTC, TNRTC, MSRTC, GSTRC.

The original equitment (OE) business for bus/truck radial tyres is taking on a new importance in the country with more bus/truck manufacturing companies entering the market.

After Volvo, Tatas and Ashok Leyland now it is Mercedes which plans to manufacture buses in India. "We are in talks with them to be OE tyre suppliers," revealed Malhotra.

"JK Tyre is the sole supplier to the high-end luxury bus Tata Globus and the high capacity luxury bus Tata Star, used in high-speed intra city operations currently," he added.

In addition to radialisation of the truck and bus segments, now the tubeless tyre has come into use with a few companies opting for it specially for high duty usage.

"The Tata Star bus and Ashok Leyland's H Series Viking Plus (a high-end luxury) are early users of these tyres," he said.

As part of customer relation management for its truck radial customers, the company has set-up 17 tyre care centers along the Golden Quadrilateral.

"We have plans to open 10 more centers by March 2006," he said.