Tyre demand to remain robust amid positive economic environment: JK Tyre CMD

Demand for tyres in the domestic market is expected to remain robust going ahead as the automobile industry continues to scale new highs amid a positive economic environment, JK Tyre Chairman and Managing Director Raghupati Singhania said. In an interaction with PTI, the veteran industry leader said that robust Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and the government’s focus on infrastructure development, is expected to fuel growth for the automobile sector as well as the tyre industry.

“We see that the domestic demand will continue to be robust due to the healthy macroeconomic factors as well as the investments in infra and of course, overall feel good economic environment that we are running through,” he said.

Elaborating on some positive factors, Singhania said freight availability remains consistent, helping the commercial vehicle segment.

Besides, robust GDP growth and more disposable income is helping in the enhanced offtake of cars, he noted.

“So, we foresee that car demand will go up and so will the demand for tyres,” Singhania said.

He said more and more people are now looking to travel by road as various high quality roads have come up in the last 18-20 months. “This is going to open new venues of usage of cars in particular. And, therefore, the consumption of tyres,” Singhania said. On JK Tyres, he said the company being a leader in the truck and bus radial tyres continues to focus on the segment.

“However, we will also have an enhanced focus on Passenger Car Radial (PCR) because the headroom is even better in the segment,” he added.

Singhania said the company’s topline has been growing consistently over the last few quarters and it expects to maintain it going ahead.

The company’s consolidated net profit surged five-fold to Rs 249 crore for the September quarter, riding on a robust performance in the domestic market.

With demand expected to remain robust, JK Tyre plans to enhance its tyre production capacity by 20 per cent by 2025.

The company can currently produce 35 lakh tyres per annum.

“The expansion is going to be mainly for the PCR but other segments also will get covered. We are expecting that the complete commissioning of the project will take about two years,” Singhania said.

On the channel development, the company is increasing its brand presence through increasing exclusive company brand shops to penetrate deeper into the domestic markets and cover all white spaces, he added.