Apollo Tyres has announced a major new strategic five-year plan to build its presence in Europe’s truck and bus, radial (TBR) tyre market. The plan includes measures to double TBR tyre production output compared to last year at its advanced production plant in Hungary, as well as expand its product range to cover up to 90% of the TBR segment’s total size and specification requirements by 2025.
Five-Year TBR Plan Revealed by Apollo Tyres
Next year, Apollo Tyres will launch its first truck and trailer tyres for 19.5-inch diameter rims, commonly used for lighter-tonnage, high-mileage regional applications. The company will initially focus on the seven most popular dimensions, and its target is to cover 81% of the 19.5-inch market requirement by 2025.
The new plan will also see the company enter the 22.5-inch winter market, providing new levels of all-weather performance and efficiency and complementing its existing heavy truck and trailer tyre range.
In a separate announcement, the company shared details of its first long-haul trailer (LHT) tyre with the launch of its all-new EnduMile LHT, which is A-rated for rolling resistance and will be the most durable and fuel-efficient truck-sector tyre ever produced by Apollo Tyres. The new trailer product has been developed specifically to outperform the best-selling and best-performing tyres in the LHT segment, and soon will be accompanied by LHT tractor-unit tyre options for both steering and driven axles.
Another new segment for the company will be tyres with a low-profile 60mm aspect ratio, suitable for commercial vehicles with Euro 6-compliant engines. Apollo Tyres will launch both steer and drive-axle options.
Meanwhile, Apollo is stepping up its efforts to secure additional original equipment (OE) agreements. Last month Schwarzmüller, one of Europe’s top trailer manufacturers, selected Apollo Tyres’ EnduRace RT, EnduRace RT2 and EnduTrax MAHD tyres as OE specification for its truck trailers, marking the tyre manufacturer’s first OE deal in the European truck sector.
“We’re very ambitious about meeting the complex and diverse requirements of Europe’s truck and bus market, and with every new tyre we launch we will remain true to our value-centric ethos: delivering tier-one performance at tier-two prices,” explains John Nikhil Joy, Cluster Director Europe – Truck & Bus Tyres, at Apollo Tyres. “We are increasing our investment in our R&D operations in Europe and India, with a focus on helping operators meet evolving regulations and their own fuel- and energy-saving goals. This will be a period of unprecedented change and growth for our TBR operations.”
To support the diversification of the Apollo Tyres TBR product range, the company will explore new ways to manage increased load capacities while maintaining competitiveness for weight, grip, traction, noise and rolling resistance. With its new LHT product, the EnduMile LHT, Apollo Tyres is deploying a robust new structure to facilitate retreading for enhanced sustainability and low whole-life costs, and these innovations in materials and design are likely to feature on future TBR products.
The company is also readying a number of connected tyre solutions, including radio-frequency identification (RFID) and tyre pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) to help drivers and operators monitor performance data in real time.
