As of October, Kevin Burke Tyres is offering the entire Alliance tyre portfolio in Ireland. Yokohama Off-Highway Tires says that this new partnership, along with its long-standing relationship with Kirkby Tyres, will “ensure an even wider array of tailor-made solutions for the Irish market.” Kirkby Tyres remains exclusive partner for the Alliance brand in England, Wales and Scotland.
During a ceremony held today and attended by local and regional officials, Yokohama Off Highway Tires (YOHT) inaugurated its newest factory in India and broke ground on the second stage of work at the site. Located in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh state, the new plant is YOHT’s third in the country.
Forestry machine track manufacturers Olofsfors, Clarks and Pewag have approved the mounting of their products upon Alliance 643 Forestar III and Alliance 644 Forestar III tyres. They gave this pairing with Alliance the nod during the Interforst trade fair, which is taking place in Munich this week.
Kirkby Tyres’ stand in Lamma 2022’s Hall 9 focused on the comprehensive technical tyre support the large tyre specialist can offer to farmers and the Alliance Agri Star II. Kirkby Tyres is the exclusive partner of Yokohama Off-Highway Tires’ (YOHT) Alliance brand in the UK and Ireland, and it describes the tractor tyre as a great success. The company also displayed new sizes of the versatile Alliance 590 tyre for a broad range of transport applications, and the Alliance 372 VF and Alliance 389 VF tractor trailer tyres. On the latter tyres, Kirkby showed evidence presented by Danish SEGES Innovation which evidences the effective soil protection, and therefore yield increases, the tyre combination can achieve during the application of liquid manure.
Now Yokohama has confirmed its acquisition of Trelleborg Wheel Systems (TWS), we can talk more definitively about the rationale behind the purchase. There are several drivers behind the acquisition, but they all boil down to Yokohama’s desire to increase global leadership and rebalances its product mix.
Yokohama Off-Highway Tires (YOHT) aims to be a top-three player in the global off-highway’ tyre segment and the company hopes that the recent expansion of the Alliance Agri Star II range as well as the performance of its other products will help it reach that goal. Highlighting the 4,000 plus SKUs it already offers, YOHT used the occasion of a virtual briefing to launch the Alliance Agri Star II range in 70, 85, 90 and 95-series fitments. In short, the company launched an additional 12 sizes and shared on-the-ground experiences of farmers as well as the results of recent research.
Yokohama Off-Highway Tires (YOHT) has an additional partner in Sweden. In addition to its four-decade old strategic partnership with NDI, the tyre maker is now also working with Broson Wheels. Introducing its new partner, YOHT shares that Broson Wheels is the “market leader of the OE2 business and leading supplier of tyres, rims, wheels and accessories for off-highway vehicles in Sweden.”
Yokohama Off-Highway Tires (YOHT) has added 12 more sizes to the Alliance Agri Star II radial tractor tyre range. These new additions include five 70 series tyres (240/70R16, 360/70R28, 520/70R30, 260/70R20, 580/70R42), four 85 series tyres (250/85R24, 280/85R20, 320/85R34, 420/80R46) and three 90-95 series tyres (210/95R16, 320/90R42, 420/90R30).
Yokohama Off-Highway Tires (YOHT) has reported the appointment of Andrew Musgrave as its country manager for the UK and Ireland. Musgrave commenced in this role last November and leads the aftermarket business for the Alliance and Galaxy brands in these markets. He reports to Ole Baek, YOHT’s regional head Northern Europe and France.
The Alliance agricultural portfolio has grown with the addition of further sizes for the following tyre ranges: Alliance 372 VF for tractors, Alliance 363 VF row crop for tractors and sprayers, and Alliance 585 for telehandlers backhoe and compact loaders. Introducing these new arrivals, Angelo Noronha, Yokohama Off-Highway Tires’ president for Europe, states that they come in response to “enormous interest.”
With an additional investment of US$171 million, Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd. intends to more than double the production capacity for off-highway tyres at its Visakhapatnam plant in India. The new plant is scheduled to begin operations in the first quarter of 2023 with a planned daily production capacity of 55 tonnes; this extra investment will lift daily capacity to 123 tonnes during a second project stage, which is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2024.
We’ve emerged from lockdown into a market environment of rising raw material prices, a global imbalance of containers and exploding shipping costs, not to mention continuing port disruptions. These combined factors have already led to higher tyre prices and product shortages in some instances, but the extent to which customers are affected can be tempered by good stock management.
The growth of the construction and industrial sectors is currently faster than any other part of the private sector economy, says Kirkby Tyres, Speke-based distributor of OTR tyres. In order to support this growth, Kirkby adds that it is positioning itself to supply a comprehensive line-up of tyre patterns and applications to serve its customer base. While this growth is encouraging, wholesalers must contend with the unprecedented challenges currently affecting global supply chains, including long production lead times and increases in raw materials and shipping costs. Kirkby marketing director Michael Rosenthal tells Tyres & Accessories that these challenges are presenting a bottleneck to economic recovery. The wholesaler says it is working to reduce the impact of these challenges and support its customer base by replenishing its stockholding continuously and holding good stocks of the most common OTR tyre sizes.
Yokohama Off-Highway Tires’ Alliance brand has expanded its value segment portfolio with the introduction of a tyre for pivot irrigation systems, the Alliance 768 Value Plus. This new addition is available in three sizes – 11.2-24, 14.9-24 and 11.2-38.
Yokohama Off-Highway Tires Europe Middle East and Africa (YOHT EMEA) has announced across-the-board price increases of 4.5 to 5.5 per cent. An official statement specified that the first price increase of 4.5 to 5.5 per cent was implemented on 1 Jan 2021. The new pricing will apply to the entire portfolio of Yokohama Off-Highway Tires EMEA (including the Alliance and Galaxy brands) and will take effect from 1 April 2021.
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