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THAILAND
Tyre Mart Offers Retreads as Service Package to New Tyre Clientele
beyond borders of its home turf on the retread side. “We may consider setting-up a modern retread facility in India or Myanmar if these markets offer any opportunity in the near future,” he confided. The idea is still at an early stage as no timeline has been fixed for such a retread foray.
The group deals in batteries, branded TBRs, car spares, retreading etc., through its five truck centres in Thailand besides having sales and warehouses in India and Myanmar. The company sells almost 10,000 TBR tyres each month in the three markets.
Thailand’s retread market is indicating marginally positive trends with new branded tyre sales also showing early signs of recover y. One Bangkok-based tyre distributorship
plant close to the installed capacity of 1,000 tyres per month. “We are focusing on our new tyre clientele, and if we enter the open market, we need to be more competitive and
Thai Retread Market Likely to Improve Says Ratchasima
Methee Korcharoenkiat, Director, Tyre Mart Advantage Taweesin Co. Ltd.
The Thai retread market has shown early signs of recovery, and some of the major retreaders are observing that volumes have started picking- up in the recent past. The market is expected to behave positively in the coming months with volumes starting to increase by the end of the year. “The retread market has slightly improved and it is likely to improve further in the October – November period,” observed Pat Lapanun, Manager, Ratchasima Reclaimed Rubber Co Ltd.
When asked about any major market indication that points towards improving retread volumes in the coming months, he said,
ago with the retreading operation. Compounding and tread rubber production started about five years ago.
“Our retread operation consumes half of our production and the remaining 25 tons is sold in the export market,” he informed. The company exports tread rubber to adjoining price sensitive markets, mainly to Laos, Vietnam etc. Ratchasima runs two separate units dedicated to retreading and another focusing on compounding. An Increasing concentration on quality and productivity standards has brought the required international accreditation. The
Pat Lapanun, Manager, Ratchasima Reclaimed Rubber Co Ltd.
focusing solely on the sale of globally recognised new tyre brands has forayed into retreading by offering retreads as an integral part of its new tyre business format.
“We forayed into retreading to offer it as a service package,” said Methee Korcharoenkiat, Director, Tyre Mart Advantage Taweesin Co. Ltd. The retread factory opened in the middle of 2016 and is the most recent entrant in Thailand’s retreading industry. Based at Samut Prakan (part of the Bangkok metropolitan region), the company has a modern retread plant installed with equipment like a 23-tyre Newera autoclave, a shearography machine, and a Matteuzzi buffing machine.
“We are only catering to our new tyre clients who buy branded tyres from our tyre outlets selling a basket of brands from likes of Michelin, Bridgestone, Continental, Firestone, BG Goodrich, Goodyear, Dunlop, Yokohama, Hankook, Pirelli, and Maxxis,” he said.
Tyre Mart is unusual in that it claims to be the only tyre distributor staying away from the temptation of selling low-priced imported new tyres. “We are not marketing any Chinese tyre brands in the Thai market, our focus remains on good branded tyres that can be retreaded at our plant, as the idea is to offer retread services on branded casings to our end user,” Methee emphasised.
Currently, the company operates its
lower the price of retreading. Therefore, we are not keen to enter the open market,” he reiterated. Tyre Mart offers retread services at a much higher level compared to other retreaders in the Thai market. “Our retread price is 30% higher than other retreaders,” he added. Part of the Charoen Rubber Group, Tyre Mart has been in the truck tyre business for the last four decades, but the company has no immediate plans to expand its retread business unless the market shows more positivity towards sales of tier-1 tyre brands.
“Currently, tier-1 brands like Michelin, Bridgestone and Continental only have around a 20% share of the market, and consequently there is a shortage of good, retreadable casings. Until their availability improves, expansion is not possible,” he conceded. The tier-2 market consists of brands like Maxxis, Firestone and Dunlop, followed by tier-3 brands represented by the Chinese and locally produced brands.
To assure better control over the availability of good casings, Tyre Mart collects casings from the customer directly. “The market has recovered in 2018 as our retread volumes are almost stable at around 1,000 tyres per month compared to the previous calendar year when it was really difficult to find good casings,” Methee informed.
Tyre Mart is now looking to grow
“The sale of new branded tyres has improved slightly compared to the previous year, and that may bring back good casings to retread.”
Tyre production is projected to go up from 530,000 tons annually to more than a million tons in the Thai market in the next couple of years with a number of Chinese and US based tyre producers building factories in Thailand. Chinese tyre manufacturers operating tyre factories in Thailand include the likes of Linglong, Sentur y and Double Coin.
The Nakhon Ratchasima (Khorat) based retread and compounding plant retreads 3,000 tyres and manufactures about 50 tons of tread rubber each month. The company started about 30 years
plant was accredited with ISO 9001 five years ago whilst ISO 14001 accreditation came in the middle of this year.
The rubber company is also investing in new equipment as part of improving its finished product. “We installed a Batch-Off machine last week and ordered an auto cementing machine to be installed in the next quarter,” he said. A new tensile tester machine has also been installed for testing finished products.
32 Retreading Business