Apollo Tyres to double capacity at Chennai plant

The Dollar Business Bureau

Apollo Tyres the premier tyre company in India plans to double the capacity at its Chennai plant with an investment of around Rs 2,700 crore as a part of its 2020 Building Leadership vision. Speaking to the media, the company’s spokesperson Satish Sharma, President, Apollo Tyres, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa said, “We are ramping up production at Chennai facility from 6,000 units to 12,000 units (per day) with investments of Rs 2,700 crore. It will happen in 24 months. We are beginning the exercise from this October.”

He said the company had planned to increase the capacity in 2008 itself. Apollo Tyres had commenced production at the Chennai plant in 2010. The company’s current production capacity of truck bus radials is 6000 tyres per day or 1.80 lakh tyres per month.

Satish said the capacity at Oragadam facility after doubling will reach to 12,000 tyres per day. With the expansion of the Chennai plant, the company would increase its exports by 15% from the present 10%.

Apollo is also looking at expanding into the rural areas and thus proposes to manufacture radial tyres at its factory in Baroda next year. The Baroda plant will also be upgraded to manufacture tyres for its Sports Utility Vehicle segment .  Mentioning the same Satsh Sharma said, “ "In two-wheeler segment we are still in primitive stage. We entered this segment in May. We are selling at about one lakh units. We targeted of exiting this year with three lakh units. But it may be around 2-2.50 lakh units.” The new assembly line at the Baroda will have capacity of 3,000 units per day.

In passenger car segment, the company has 17 per cent while in agriculture sector it is around 20 per cent, he said.