New Jordanian TRIB Member
Al Nimer Tire Company based in Amman, Jordan, has joined the Tire Retread Information Bureau (TRIB), bringing TRIB’s membership to nearly 460 members in 36 countries. “TRIB continues to grow internationally as more and more companies in the retread industry throughout the world realize that TRIB is the only international retread industry association,” said Harvey Brodsky, TRIB’s Managing Director.
Continue ReadingMarangoni Offers Synergies and New Products in “The Village“
“For over 50 years our Group has believed in tyres and has educated its people and developed new technologies to be able to handle every aspect and every phase of a tyre’s life cycle,” Mario Marangoni president of the Italian Marangoni group points out. Today Marangoni belongs to the few companies that are covering all the different aspects of tyres. In the future this is going to be communicated even more. Marangoni now wants to harmonise and internationalise its own brand appearance, says Massimo De Alessandri, managing director of the Marangoni Holding company in an interview with Tyres & Accessories.
Continue Reading‘We are The Bubkas of the Tyre Business’
When asked to sum up his company’s year “business is going well,” is the response given by Deldo sales manager, Stani Delcroix. By this he means that the company has once again broken its own sales records with turnover growing 10 per cent to 235 million euros. Delcroix said he believed this was impossible to beat, that was until the company achieved a further 8 per cent growth (year-on-year) in the first quarter of 2006.
Continue ReadingClear Goals
Last year Van den Ban group turned-over roughly 250 million euros through the sale of around 4.7 million tyres. Now the company is aiming to increase the range of products and improve its service through the construction of a new “24,000 square-metre logistic tyre centre and a 20,000 square metre container terminal.” Tyres & Accessories met with managing director Frans van Lenten during the recent Essen show and found out more.
Continue ReadingFalken Looks to the Future with New Products
This year there was one single goal that Sumitomo Rubber Industries or rather Falken wanted to achieve at the Reifen show in Essen: promoting the new flagship tyre - Falken FK-452. In particular there is now a new unique Falken size which was developed together with O·Z as a wheel manufacturer and aimed at SUV drivers, explains Isamu Ishida.
Continue ReadingRösler Introduces Brand New OTR Tyre
Hearing that the Rösler group has grown strongly in recent years is nothing new. In Essen two much more groundbreaking announcements were made, which show the determination with which the company is chasing its goals. The Rodos business unit for example now not only offers a wide assortment of retreaded OTR tyres, but also new OTR tyres under a new brand. The product is called WinStone and will be offered in the follow radial tyre sizes: 17.5 R25, 20.5 R25, 23.5 R25 and 26.5 R25. Tyres up to 49 inches could also be added soon, managing director Paul Rösler junior explains. The same sizes will be available as cross-ply tyres.
Continue ReadingBergey’s Goes 100 per cent With Marangoni
(Akron/Tire Review) Retreader Bergeys Tire, based in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, has become a Marangoni Ringtread retreader. According to the announcement, Bergey’s will exclusively produce and sell Marangoni retreads, and will not renew its previous franchise deal with Bandag.
Continue ReadingReport says Kumho Workers on ‘Partial’ Strike
The Korea Herald has reported that union workers at Kumho Tire Co. plants in South Korea have been “on a partial strike” since last week. The union workers are seeking a 9 per cent wage increase among the 52 “terms” they are demanding from the tyremaker, said the report. The partial strike is apparently part of broader job action at a number of major South Korean manufacturers, including Hyundai Motor, Ssangyong Motor, a number of oil and construction companies, and other major employers.
Continue ReadingCooper Idles All Four US Plants
Following earlier reports that Cooper Tire & Rubber will idle its Texarkana, Arkansas production facility, the company now says it has decided to suspend production at all of its US plants for two weeks. Cooper Tire & Rubber Europe’s production facility at Melksham, UK, is not expected to have any shutdowns. However, sources within the company report that production here has also been cut back slightly. As the problem is due to oversupply, deliveries are not expected to be adversely affected. Cooper Tire & Rubber Europe sources all of its 4x4 lines from the US production plants.
Continue ReadingKyoto Japan Wants to Improve European Standing
Kyoto Japan Tire Corp. Ltd. was right on time to launch two new products at this year’s Reifen exhibition. The Chinese manufacturer which is headquartered in Japan (and used to have production facilities in Japan as well) was exhibiting in Germany for the second time now and has put a lot of faith into its two new tyres. First there is the “Kyoto Maxima 714” which will be settled in the high performance tyre segment, explains Dagmar Ochmann-Klimkowski who is running Kyoto’s European Office.
Continue ReadingElgitread Puts Europe on the Agenda
Since Elgitread (India) Ltd., the Indian supplier of retreading material, machinery, accessories and services, gained a new exclusive importer for the important German market (Hämmerling group), business in Europe is said to be getting better and better. Until four or five years ago Elgitread focussed most of its capacity on the development of the North and South American markets, explains K. Gopinath in an interview with Tyres & Accessories. Since then, Europe has reached a new position on top of the Elgitread agenda, the general manager responsible for international marketing continues.
Continue ReadingSibur-Russian Tires: Lone Fighter in Essen
Market observers agree that the Russian and Eastern European markets are not only interesting for Western manufacturers, but vice versa as well. However, this belief wasn’t reflected in the number of Russian exhibitors that were present at this year’s Reifen show. Polite visitors counted 1.5 Russian exhibitors in Essen. Those who see Vredestein as a Russian company now managed to count two. For Russian manufacturer Sibur-Russian Tires (SRT) the Reifen exhibition definitely was a required course, according to Igor Karavaev, strategy and business development director. Right now the Russian company is looking for a potential joint venture partner abroad and also wants to increase its exports to the European markets. Consequently, SRT’s stand mainly featured the latest flagship product - the new Cordiant brand.
Continue ReadingShanghai Baolong: Getting Down to Brass Tacks
Many of the conversations on the Shanghai Baolong Industries Company Limited stand at Essen concerned the rising costs of raw materials and the effect that this has had on Shanghai Baolong and its products; notably brass valves and wheel balancing weights. Since 2003, says the company, the price of copper has risen continually. By March 2006, most people thought that the copper price had reached its peak because it was at an unprecedented level after rising for such a long time. As it was, the price of copper was set to increase way beyond what most people had imagined.
Continue ReadingNHTSA Asked to Probe Firestone Spare Tyres
(Akron/Tire Review) Sean E. Kane, president of Safety Research & Strategies, is calling for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to investigate the effectiveness of Firestone ATX and Wilderness AT consumer replacement programs in 2000 and 2001 and launch another consumer notification programme.
Continue ReadingMatador Increases Profits and Turnover
A lot has happened for Slovakian tyre manufacturer, Matador, since it first exhibited under its new name back in 1994. Back then a 3x3 metre cubicle sufficed, this year Matador covered about 200 square metres of floor space in Hall 3. It is no coincidence that this is the case because about 10 years ago the Slovakian manufacturer founded its distribution subsidiary on the German market under the leadership of Dr Miroslav Rosina. Since then Germany has become one of the most important markets for Matador.
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