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EAST AFRICA
Aloona Switches to Hi – Tech Pretreads
Nairobi, Kenya based retreader, Aloona Industries has made a number of changes and investments at its plant in order to improve retread volumes and profitability. This includes switching its tread rubber supplier to the Indian brand Hi-Tech as well as an investment in new equipment at the plant
“We have more than double the installed capacity by adding a bigger 13-tyre autoclave and a new builder in the last two years,” confirmed Kenyan entrepreneur Harpreet S Lotey, Managing Director of Aloona Industries. “Until our investment the retread site was operating on a single eight tyre chamber,” he added, “but we decided to import new equipment from the Coimbatore-based machinery brand Glisten. In addition to the above investments, Aloona has also ordered a tyre cleaning machine from Glisten to clean the tyre properly prior to
retreading.
Aloona offers retreads at a highly competitive price level in the Kenyan market, and with this in mind the company recently switched to the economy tread brand Hi-Tech Pretreads from another Indian brand. “We started using the Hi-Tech brand from October 2018 as the market became highly price sensitive due to
the crisis in the trailer transport sector and the demonetisation of high value currency in the Kenyan market,” he explained. “We import a container of tread rubber every alternate month and supply on average 10 tons each month to various retreaders. The rest is consumed by our retread operation,” informed Lotey. Established in 2004 as Tyre & Tread Ltd, Lotey’s company revived itself after a hiatus of almost a decade as Aloona Industries in 2013. The highly competitive retreader produces about 1,400 tyres on an
Harpreet S Lotey, Managing Director of Aloona Industries
average each month.
According to Lotey, the switchover to Hi-Tech has cut production costs by between 1,200 to 1,500 Kenyan Shillings per tyre. “This is not much of a price difference on a
single tyre, but it definitely makes an impact on big volume clients or on an annual contract. Every penny spent or earned counts in the business today,” he stressed.