MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Nov. 11, 2011) — China's Qingdao Doublestar Industrial Co. Ltd. has partnered with Del-Nat Tire Corp. to use space in the U.S. tire distributor's 486,000-sq.-ft. facility in South Memphis as its first North American distribution center.
Beginning at the end of November, the Chinese tire maker will use about 20,000 square feet of the facility to store and distribute its Doublestar medium-size steel radial heavy-duty truck tires. Del-Nat President Jim Mayfield said the company will provide inventory management for Doublestar, but the tire maker will have its own sales and marketing team in the U.S.
“We're only going to be warehousing the Doublestar brand tires,” he told Tire Business. “We're not going to be selling and distributing them…. We receive the tires, we inventory them, manage that inventory and then they're going to be selling the tires, arranging for shipment, doing all those things.”
In 2008, Long Beach, Calif.-based Greenball Corp. signed a deal as the exclusive distributor of Doublestar medium-truck tires in the U.S., but Mr. Mayfield said he believes Doublestar plans to manage the brand itself going forward.
Greenball has not responded to calls from Tire Business for comment.
Doublestar is one of the largest radial truck tire producers in China, with 2010 sales of $1.23 billion. Mr. Mayfield said the partnership could result in a commercial truck tire variant of Del-Nat's Akuret brand.
“For us, there is not enough production in the U.S. for us to be able to source significant volume of truck tires,” he said. “In the long term, it's our desire to have someone build our Akuret brand truck tire lineup for us. We're hopeful that at some point down the road we may be able to have an announcement that we found the partner to build our Akuret brand truck tire.”
Del-Nat sells Akuret-brand products for ST trailer, skid steer, industrial, OTR and farm applications, Mr. Mayfield said. Most of the tires are produced by Guizhou Tire Co. Ltd. in Guiyang, China, with some Akuret farm tires being made by Israel's Alliance Tire Group.
To reach this reporter: [email protected]; 330-865-6148.