SEOUL: Hankook Tire & Expertise Co, the world’s sixth-largest tire maker by gross sales, stated yesterday it began supplying tires for Mercedes-Benz’s S-Class sedan final yr.
Hankook Tire has been offering the high-performance tires, together with Ventus S1 Evo3 and Ventus S1 Evo3 run-flat merchandise, since early final yr within the type of authentic gear (OE) merchandise for the posh sedan, the corporate stated in a press release.
To boost its international model picture, the tire maker has offered its OE tire merchandise for 320 sorts of automobiles of practically 50 international carmakers, together with Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.
Supplying OE tires to automobile producers doesn’t generate a lot income for tire makers however securing large firms as shoppers helps enhance their model picture, and may result in boosting model consciousness and an increase in product costs down the road.
For tire makers, it’s extra worthwhile to promote substitute gear tires in after-sales markets. Hankook Tire earns over 80% of its complete income from overseas. It has eight vegetation – two in South Korea, one in Hungary, one in america, three in China and one in Indonesia – whose mixed capability reaches 102 million tires per yr. — The Korea Herald/ANN