Apollo Tyres to invest Euro 500 mn to set up plant in Europe

Apollo Tyres is reportedly planning to set a greenfield facility in Eastern Europe with an investment of Euro 500 million as part of its overseas expansion plans. The board of directors of the leading automotive tyre manufacturer had already cleared this investment and the facility will be functional by 2017-18, according to Neeraj Kanwar, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Apollo Tyres.
 
According to him, the new factory would mainly cater to the original equipment segment in Europe, which is becoming a critical market to Apollo Tyres. The company is yet to identify the location of the project. Apollo already has an R&D facility for car and SUV segment in Europe.
 
In addition, Apollo Tyres is planning to invest about Rs 2,000 crore in next three years on the Indian operations to further consolidate its marketshare. The local plan includes expansion of the greenfield facility in Chennai and Kalamassery plant in Kerala. Apollo plans to increase the production capacity of Chennai plant to 9,000 truck radials from the current 6,000. Kanwar said that Rs 1,500 crore investment is needed for this.
 
The company has transformed Kalamassery plant for exclusively producing Off the Road (OTR) tyres and production is on. It now produces 30 tonnes of tyre on a daily basis from here. Kalamassery plant, which is one of the oldest tyre plants in India, will be fully revamped to cater to the overseas demand in OTR segment. Kanwar said that Rs 500 crore will be invested for the renovation and expansion.
 
Apollo has recently started operations in Thailand targeting the ASEAN market. It also started operations in UAE and Australia apart from Brazil. The company now exports to 100 plus companies from its plants in India, Europe and South Africa. Kanwar said that Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and America are the major markets as these areas contributes 38% of the consolidated revenue.