Hyderabad, February, 2005: Birla Tyres, a flagship company of the B.K. Birla group, a US $ 1.2 million conglomerate  unveils a  new truck tyre “BT 339+” for
the front axle  application. The new product was launched here in city at a Customers Meet held recently at hotel Green Park by Mr. Amit Chowdhury, Vice President, Technical Services of Birla Tyres. An extension of its main brand BT 339, with higher physical dimensional feature,  it is especially
developed  for multi-axle vehicle with power-steering coupled with additional front axle load. 

According to Mr. Amit, higher mileage, higher load carrying capacity, extra grip, perfectly even-wear,improved casing look and better casing value are the
salient features of this new product Speaking immediately after the launch, Mr. Amit said that the company is thriving on new developments which are in tune with fast changing market conditions in terms of load carrying capacity,mileage and value for the money.  The new tyre is especially designed with Southern India trucking applications in mind, he said.
 
Further he added that  Andhra Pradesh leads in sales chart of  Birla Tyres for truck in the Southern region and expected to gain further market share with
the launch of this  new product.  South alone contributes 9 per cent of sales to its overall sales across the country.  This is likely to be increased to
12 per cent in near future, he said. Birla Tyres sells about 12000 truck tyres per month in South India.  In A.P alone it sells around 4,500, revealed Mr. Amit.

With several products already launched and couple of more in pipeline, Birla Tyres is on fast pace of growth.  We garnered a market share of 11 per cent in Truck Tyres across the nation, Mr. Amit claimed. Adding further he stated, 30 per cent of its products are exported to about 43 countries like Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Vietnam, Belgium and others. 

According to him the company is expected to touch a turnover of Rs 650 crore in this current financial year.  The company today has 2000 retail outlets, 52
stock points and 80 Carrying Forward Agents across the country, informed Mr. Amit.  Talking about its production capacity, Mr.Amit informed that the company with a plant at Balasore(Orissa) currently produces 87,500 truck tyres per month.  By June 2005, it will go upto 93,000 tyres per month.  It is the only tyre plant in India to be conferred with ISO 9001, QS 9000,ISO 14001certification adn TPM Excellence Award-1st Category from Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance(JIPM).  This gave Biral Tyres the status of the most efficient run tyre company in our country.The plant was installed in technical collaboration with Pirelli Ltd, Italy, one of the global leaders in
the tyre industry, he said.

Reachout's News Bureau
Feb'05