India’s most trusted brand in the retreading sector, Elgi Rubber, is focusing on expanding its network of franchisees.
Elgi Continues its Expansion
Elgi is aggressively scouting for partners intending to join the retreading sector. The Coimbatore-headquartered company has doubled its marketing drive to find suitable partners who have the required potential to grow in the business.
Elgi has recently opened a new franchisee in Cochin, a southern Indian state in Kerala. The Kochi franchisee is an Indane brand gas distributor supplied by the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOC) bottling plant in Cochin. Indane is a gas subsidiary of IOC, which is owned by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas of the government of India.
IOC has played a major role in India’s transition to cleaner fuels as it markets Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) under the brand Indane. Indane has now become one of the largest packed LPG brands in the world, with Indian Oil as the second-largest marketer of LPG globally.
Bringing Retreading Closer to Customers
The new Elgi franchisee, ‘Tyre Care Kochi’, has the capacity to retread 40 tyres per day. “Initially, we are targeting 20 tyres per day, and once the demand picks up, the production would be doubled to meet the installed capacity,” informed Cyriac Kuriakose, an Indane distributor who decided to venture into an entirely new vertical of the retreading business.
Kuriakose has good connections among the gas distributors in Kerala and strongly believes in bringing other gas distributors into the fold soon. “We have three Bharat Benz trucks engaged in the supply of Indane gas in and around Kochi city, so we have other distributors working with major state-owned oil companies like Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum besides IOC, and we are targeting these distributors to get their tyres retreaded at our plant,” he said. About 500 distributors are estimated to work with these oil companies in Kerala, with each distributor owning 3-5 trucks.
The new retread plant also targets the BPCL Kochi Oil Refinery, which refines 50,000 barrels of crude oil daily. All major oil companies have their complexes installed with silos to store refined oil and make other petroleum products around the Kochi Oil Refinery to supply other Southern states.
Kuriakose continues: “Kochi refinery has a huge parking bay for tankers parked and moved to various parts of the country after filling. We are also targeting these parked trucks with our retreading service.”
Market Potential for Retreads
Tyre Care Kochi also plans to tap 100s of trucks moving in and out of the nearby Vallarpadam Terminal, located about 15 km from the recently opened retreading plant. The Kochi International Transhipment Terminal, locally known as the Vallarpadam Terminal, is the first transhipment terminal in India to operate in an SEZ, and it is part of the Cochin Port in Kochi.
The market potential is based on major oil refineries, major oil companies’ depots besides container terminals nearby, and a huge network of gas distributors. Strategically located, Tyre Care Kochi hopes to operate at optimum capacity soon. “We hope to achieve full production capacity in the next 6 or 10 months,” explains Kuriakose.
Cochin is regarded as a potential retread market, with almost every major retread brand, such as Marangoni, TVS, Eastern, and Elgi, now having a presence here. “We believe there is a lot of scope to grow in the retreading market in Cochin, considering the truck movement engaged in the oil and gas distribution,” says Kuriakose.
The company also believes it may consider further expansion if the retreading foray in Cochin moves on expected lines and they can open a similar capacity plant in another district.
Elgi Equipment at the Forefront
Tyre Care Kochi is installed with a complete set of plant machinery from Elgi, such as a 5-tyre autoclave, tyre changer, inspection spreader, buffing machine, rasping machine, tyre building machine, envelope spreader, and more.
Interestingly, Tyre Care Kochi is one step ahead in providing service at the customer’s doorstep. Kuriakose explains: “We are getting our service vehicle ready soon, equipped with all the pneumatic tools to bring the tyre to the plant or even get them fixed at the client site or wherever the trucks are parked.”
Sudarshan Varadaraj, Managing Director, Elgi Rubber Company Ltd, formally opened the new franchisee site in the presence of Harsha Varadraj, Director, and Satish Kumar, Vice President, Sales & Distribution.
