LAS VEGAS — India's JK Tyre & Industries Ltd., which earlier this year began a long-anticipated run at building a presence in the U.S., is ramping up its efforts by expanding distribution of its Tornel brand and preparing to launch sales of JK-brand radial truck tires in 2013.
Having signed Sure Tire Co. in early 2011 as the Tornel distributor for most of the U.S., JK Tyre recently added Tireco Inc. of Gardena, Calif., to handle the Mexican brand in California and is looking for distributors in the Northeast, according to Raghupati Singhania, vice chairman and managing director of JK Tyre.
Along the same lines, JK is evaluating distribution options for its JK-brand radial truck tires, Mr. Singhania said in an interview with Tire Business at the recent SEMA Show in Las Vegas.
“JK has a long history of selling tires in U.S.,” Mr. Singhania said, “but mainly bias truck in the past…. Our next challenge will be radial truck tires.”
Mr. Singhania is confident JK's radial truck tires will be competitive in the U.S., because his company is producing tires for the Indian subsidiaries of world-class truck makers like Volvo A.B. and Daimler-Benz A.G.
The moves come as JK ramps up expanded capacities at its three existing plants in India, brings on stream a $325 million car and truck tire plant in Chennai, India, and takes full advantage of its modernized and expanded passenger and light truck tire capacity at the three Tornel plants in and around Mexico City.
The company has invested $300 million over the past couple of years, he said, and is in the midst of $500 million more earmarked through 2013.
While declining to quantify the firm's sales expectations in the U.S., Mr. Singhania said JK is “looking forward to a much larger participation in the U.S. market.”
JK Tornel, the renamed business unit in Mexico, reported sales for the year ended March 31 of $265 million, up 29 percent despite the slow economies in the region.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Tornel brand is not well represented in Latin America outside of Mexico, according to Trilok Goel, executive director of the Mexican subsidiary.
JK is working to remedy that situtation, he said, by expanding distribution of the brand, either through new distributors or by working with long-time distributors of JK's bias-ply truck tires, which the company claims have a strong following in certain South American markets.
JK also complements its JK brand in certain markets with the Vikrant brand acquired in the late 1980s and has a few off-take production agreements with companies the officials declined to name.
JK Tornel also has gained OE fitments with its JK brand on vehicles assembled in Mexico by Chrysler L.L.C., Nissan North America Inc. and Volkwagen of America Inc., that are to be sold in the U.S., Mr. Goel said. He declined to identify the vehicles, which will roll out next year.
JK Tornel will make the tires in Mexico, he added.
JK's expanded sales efforts in the Americas and in other export markets will help drive the company toward its goal of more than doubling annual sales to $3.4 billion by 2015, Mr. Singhania said. Exports account for only about 15 percent of JK's sales, but the revenue from exports is expected to nearly double this year, he added.
Europe is not on the firm's radar screen yet, he added, saying JK has to ramp up capacity more and develop European-specific sizes and lines before it would be taken seriously there.
The company, which spends less than 1 percent of sales on research and development, intends to increase that spending steadily the next few years to keep product quality up and also has linked with research institutes in India to complement its in-house efforts.
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Expansion projects JK has under way:
- $325 million radial car and truck tire plant in Chennai, with a projected capacity of 5 million car and 600,000 truck tires a year, is ramping up production now.
- Adding 500,000 units of radial car tire capacity at the Banmore, India, plant.
- Ramping up production of truck/bus radials at the Mysore, India, plant to 800,000 units annually this year and to 1.2 million by 2012-13.
- Expanding radial car/light truck tire capacity in Mexico by 500,000 units a year.
Other developments:
- JK Tornel is expanding its radial farm tire capacity, and will soon be producing 18.4/38-inch JK-branded tires.
- JK is moving forward with plans to expand its radial OTR tire capacity to 57-inch rim diameter sizes. Currently the largest size is a 30.00-51
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