Tyre-maker BKT eyes doubling domestic market share in the next few years

Leading off-highway tyre manufacturer Balkrishna Industries that sells under the BKT brand expects its domestic market share to double in the next couple of years to over 12 per cent, a top company official said.

The company, which competes with Goodyear, Yokohoma-owned ATG, MRF and Apollo, among others, currently commands 6-7 per cent share of the domestic market.

It expects its market share to touch 12-15 per cent as it has been witnessing increasing demand for its farm sector offerings.

Currently, only 20 per cent of the city-based company's sales comes from the domestic market, of which 40 per cent is from the farm segment. It expects this to grow to over 50 per cent in two years.

 

"The farm sector has been getting lots of government attention in the past few years and one of the results is the rising mechanisation. Accordingly, we are also getting lot of demand. This should help us drive sales.

"We see our domestic market share more than doubling to 12-15 per cent from 6-7 per cent now. Currently, farming contributes 40 percent of domestic sales which should also be going up to well over 50 per cent," BKT Joint Managing Director Rajiv A Poddar told PTI.

Overall, he said BKT nets almost 80 per cent of revenue from exports, with domestic sales accounting for the rest.

Of the total revenue, 60 per cent is contributed by the agriculture sector, followed by mining and construction equipment chipping in with 35 per cent and the rest 5 per cent from golf carts segment.

Europe is its largest market, accounting for half of the firm's exports, followed by Americas at 20 per cent.

The Rs 4,800-crore company is confident of closing the current fiscal at at least the past year's level or even marginally higher.

The lockdown has shaved off 50 per cent sales in Q1 but Q2 has made up for it, with sales almost normalising to pre-pandemic levels, he said.

Poddar ruled out getting into passenger or commercial vehicles space, saying there is huge market available for the off-highway tyres.

The BKT Group manufactures an extensive range of off-highway tyres specifically designed for vehicles operating in agricultural, industrial, earthmoving, mining, port, ATV (golf) and gardening sectors. It manufactures more than 2,700 different tyres which are sold in over 160 countries.

It is expecting its Rs 1,000-crore capacity expansion plan to be completed as scheduled in March, under which it is setting up a Rs 500-crore facility to replace its existing plant and enhance productivity.

The company is also setting up an ultra large-sized all-steel OTR (off-the-road) radial tyre unit with an annual capacity of 5,000 tonnes at its Bhuj facility which it had set up in 2015 at an investment of Rs 3,000 crore. It will be the first of its kind plant in the country.

BKT has annual capacity of 3-lakh tonnes currently.

It is also building a warehouse and mixing plant there at an estimated cost of about Rs 500 crore.

The BKT counter closed nearly 3 per cent down at Rs 1,348.55 on the BSE whose benchmark Sensex tanked 1.33 per cent.