Apollo Tyres to up tube manufacturing capacity

The Rs 2,300-crore tyre major Apollo Tyres Ltd is all set to expand its tyre manufacturing capacity at its Vadodara plant. The company aims to add an additional capacity to produce 3,000 tyres per day with an estimated investment of about Rs 70 crore.

The Limda-based plant in Vadodara has a capacity to produce around 7,000 tyres per day. The plant was commissioned with an investment of about Rs 180 crore in 1991 to manufacture radial tyre.

At present the company produces 1,000 tubeless tyre per day, and this would go up to 2,500 tyres per day after the capacity expansion. The company will manufacture about 20 sizes of bias tyre and 8 sizes of tubeless tyre.

The Apollo Tyre launched its new range of tubeless tyre 'Acelere' on Wednesday in Vadodara. The 'Acelere' - is a premium H-rated tubeless car radial tyre for select B segment cars and complete range for the premium C, D and E segments.

"We are planning to launch 'Acelere' in European countries where we are selling the bias tyre now. We have already launched tubeless tyre in overseas markets US, Africa, South and East Asia and Australia. At present, we are exporting about 12 per cent of our total produce," said Neeraj Kanwar, chief operating officer, Apollo Tyres.

The tally of institutional buyers includes automobile players such as Mahindra and Mahindra, Tata Motors and Maruti Udyog Ltd. The Apollo Tyres enjoys about 18 per cent market share and aims to increase about 2 per cent market share each year.

Sunam Sarkar, chief manager (strategy and business operations), said: "The capacity has been expanded with the imported machinery and the expansion has been done on our own with the help of existing man power. The expansion will be funded through internal accruals." Kanwar denied any possibility of raising fund from the capital market.