Despite all market developments, KRAIBURG Austria has been able to register pleasing sales figures for the business year 2018, achieving a turnover of 75 million Euro.
Kraiburg Bucks the Trend in Competitive Market
This corresponds to an increase of about twelve per cent in comparison with the previous year. The company puts the growth down mainly to the increased demand for premium compounds for mould cure retreads. At the same time, sales figures for the company’s K_plus, K_base and K_tech precured products was able to be maintained.
Whilst the Austrian company invested millions including the installation of a new mixing line in 2017, in 2018 they concentrated on optimising internal processes as well as customer service.
“Retreaders need all the support they can get,” explained Stefan Mayrhofer, deputy CEO of KRAIBURG Austria. “That is why we are doing all we can to serve our partners optimally and are very pleased to have been able to intensify existing customer relations as well as activate new ones.” KRAIBURG has representatives in all European and some overseas markets. Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden and Poland are the company’s key markets.
According to Sales Manager, Holger Düx, KRAIBURG Austria is now looking confidently at business developments for 2019. “We are convinced that the anti-dumping measures, which the EU took last November against the import of cheap new tyres from China, will come into full effect in the coming months, especially in spring with the opening of the construction site season. The import statistics show a decline of 50 per cent for 2018 which corresponds to a potential of more than two million tyres. We assume that retreads, which suffered massively from the supply of cheap new tyres in recent years, especially in the construction site sector, will recover a considerable percentage of these.”
KRAIBURG sees major challenges for 2019 in the ongoing drama of Brexit and its associated legal uncertainties. On the other hand, the company sees positive developments in Turkey – a market that has great strategic importance for KRAIBURG and in which the company has a strong presence thanks to the long-standing partnership with its distribution partner Tatko-Lastik.
Also still on the sales agenda is the growth market in Spain, the potential of which KRAIBURG is successively expanding. The REDIGAL company, for example, has been using KRAIBURG designs for almost two years. The retreader, based in Galicia and the neighbouring provinces of Asturias, León and Zamora has quite deliberately and very successfully extended its premium segment with KRAIBURG. They have also included winter designs with the 3PMSF symbol in their programme to satisfy the demands of the cold season.
