Apollo Tyres to double Chennai plant capacity at Rs 2,700 cr

Apollo Tyres plans to double the capacity at its Chennai plant at an investment of around Rs 2,700 crore as part of its vision of 'Building Leadership in India by 2020', a top official said.
"We are ramping up production at Chennai facility from 6,000 units to 12,000 units (per day) with investments of Rs 2,700 crore. It will happen in 24 months. We are beginning the exercise from this October," Apollo Tyres President, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Satish Sharma told reporters here.
He said the company had planned to increase the capacity long back. "Coincidentally, when we had put in our investment in Chennai it was during the downturn in 2008," he added.

In 2010, Apollo Tyres commercially began production at Chennai plant. The current capacity of truck-bus radials is 6,000 tyres per day or 1.80 lakh tyres per month.
The capacity at Oragadam facility after doubling will reach to 12,000 tyres per day, he said.
With expansion of Chennai plant, the company would increase its exports by 15 per cent from the present 10 per cent, he said.

He also said the company was looking at expanding in rural areas and propose to manufacture radial tyres for two-wheelers in its factory at Baroda.
"In two-wheeler segment we are still in primitive stage. We

entered this segment in May. We are selling at about one lakh units. We targeted of exiting this year with three lakh units. But it may be around 2-2.50 lakh units", he said.
"We may begin manufacturing of two-wheeler radial tyres in our factory in Baroda next year", he said.
Under the vision of "Building Leadership in India" by the year 2020, he said, "We want to increase our market share in commercial vehicle segment from 27 per cent to 30-33 per cent."
In passenger car segment, the company has 17 per cent while in agriculture sector it is around 20 per cent, he said.

The company also planned to set up a separate assembly line to manufacture tyres for Sports Utility Vehicle segment at its Baroda plant.
The new assembly line at the Baroda will have capacity of 3,000 units per day, he said.