By R. Natarajan, Managing Editor & Publisher
The Indian economy continues to grow with significant opportunities available across industries. One of the biggest market opportunities is within the automotive sector fuelled by the growing middle class consumer segment that looks for quality tyres for their vehicles.
According to the India Tyre Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2020 report, the tyre market in India is projected to be dominated by the two-wheeler tyre segment, in volume terms, through 2020. Rising vehicle sales, including two-wheelers, passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, medium & heavy commercial vehicles, three-wheelers and OTR vehicles, coupled with the country’s overall automotive fleet being in excess of 150 million vehicles, have enabled the country to emerge one of the largest tyre markets in Asia-Pacific. India is also a prominent exporter of tyres and has strong export growth expectations for the future. Already, several multinational tyre manufacturers are using India as a base for export, particularly to developing countries in the ASEAN region.
On the other hand, scrappage of age-old commercial vehicles is expected to boost the volume of tyre production to keep pace with the production of new vehicles that will go up consecutively. Also there has been a significant shift in preference from the biased to the radial technology which offers several attractive features, including better comfort, safety, more mileage, etc.
The tyre industry is also optimistic on the prospects of the much-awaited GST which will ensure a uniform price policy across the country.