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INDIA
JM Tyre Marc to Open Retail Outlets
JK Franchisee to Focus on LCV and Tractor Tyres to Increase Volumes
Loyal also introduced OTR tyre retreading.
On what led to the expansion two years ago, Raviendiran said, “We have a capacity of 1,000 tyres per month and were operating it to the 850-900 tyre level. We thought it was right to expand further and move to our own location once almost 90%
the plant operates at a 50% level only.”
On what led to the slowdown, Raviendiran stated; “The government banned mining in sand quarries, which are the mainstay of our business, as 30% of the tyre volumes comes from there. That chunk of the business has been wiped out.”
P Raviendiran, Managing Director, Loyal Auto World
Indian tools and consumables supplier J M Tyre Marc is planning to open several retail outlets for consumables and tools for the tyre servicing industry. “We will start with Coimbatore and spread over to other south Indian cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, Cochin and Hyderabad. The first of the retail outlets will be operational in the
price during the ongoing slowdown,” said Raj.
In the meantime, JM Tyre Marc continues to expand its product range, following an expansion of the company’s plant six months ago, which saw the factor y area doubled to 5,000 sq m.
The South India based company says it is developing a new bead breaker for SUV tyres from sizes
16 to up to 20 inches, considering SUV sales are growing in the country. It has also recently launched tubeless mounting/de- mounting tyre levers for 17.5 inches and an upgraded extruder gun for CP drive.
JM Tyre Marc is now also exporting to neighbouring Sri Lanka, Middle East and Africa, supplying spotters, vulcanisers and complete range of repair tools.
JM initially entered into the development of tools and fixtures required for the precured tyre retreading segment
exclusively. The company expanded further in 1989 to manufacture precured tyre retreading machiner y such as inspection spreaders, buffing equipment, tread builders and curing chambers.
next month,” said Joseph Raj of JM Tyre Marc.
The company says it is receiving a lot of enquiries from these cities. “The idea is to reach out to the customer and offer them a tyre repair range at a competitive
Joseph Raj of J M Tyre Marc
capacity was being utilised.” Moreover, market preferences were shifting towards tubeless tyres and super singles, and to cover the two new segments, a new set of machinery was required. “We have changed the whole plant machinery, sourced from Glisen, and installed a bigger autoclave of 10 tyres.” The company has further expanded to tyre care services like truck wheel alignment, new tyres and batteries.
Now the company plans to further expand into the tyre care market by adding a mechanical workshop and adding a lubricants range soon.
When asked about business post- expansion, Raviendiran added: “Suddenly, we experienced a market slide when we doubled the capacity to 2,000, and now
The slowdown added fuel to the fire as collecting money from the market has become a challenge. Retreading is now a purely credit- oriented business. “It is a killing point for ever y retread venture,” he commented.
With the expansion, Loyal Auto also started covering six districts instead of the earlier two districts. “Business has become service- oriented, and deliver y times have shortened from a day to a few hours, leading to a lot of areas being uncovered.”
Now Loyal Auto is considering increasing its workforce and putting more delivery vehicles in to service as large an area as possible to reach out to all six districts as initially planned.
“We are planning to focus more on LCV and tractor tyres to increase the volumes,” he added.
JK Tyre’s first retread franchisee Loyal Auto World expanded its retread site in Tamil Nadu only a couple of years ago. The Karur based retreader moved from rented premises to its own factory, the new site being five times bigger than the previous plant, and spread over a space of 10,000 sq ft.
“We have many firsts to our credit as Loyal Auto World was the first JK retread franchisee appointed
when the tyre producer forayed into the retreading sector in 2009, providing all tyre solutions from new tyres and alignment to retreading under a single roof. We are also the one and only JK super single retreader and radial retread site that services the tyre brand,” claimed P Raviendiran, Managing Director, Loyal Auto World in an interaction at Tyrexpo Chennai. With the expansion in 2017, when the capacity was doubled,
Myers Focuses on Institutional Sales
38 Retreading Business
The slowdown in the automobile sector is hitting the rubber sector also, and Indian companies are finding ways to gel synergies in their various operations to survive at a time when the market is experiencing the weakest ever sentiment in recent decades. An
example of this is Myers India Limited.
“We are part of the TVS Rubber Group and are collaboratively working in synergy in order to reduce the cost of operations, purchasing etc., as well as sharing market channels which also helps