Triangle Tyre Group Co. Ltd. is opening its North American headquarters in Franklin, Tenn, a Nashville suburb. Triangle Tire North America LLC, the joint venture company established to distribute Triangle tires in the United States, will be in its new offices by Jan. 1, 2016.
The joint venture company is operational now, according to Gustavo Lima, who is a partner Triangle Tire North America. Lima also is CEO of Miami-based Oriente Triangle Latin America Inc., which distributes Triangle tires in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Triangle Tire North America will occupy temporary space until renovation of the leased 3,100-square-foot-space in Franklin is complete, according to Lima.
Triangle Tire North America was established in late 2014. The mission of the joint venture is to “give a face to the Triangle product that has not existed before and to organize the market to give better service to the existing dealers and to increase the market share of the product in the United States,” says Lima.
Triangle Tyre Group is holding a ceremony at a Franklin-area real estate firm on Nov. 2 to celebrate its new North American headquarters. Lima will be joined by Triangle Tyre Group Chairman Ding Yuhua and other Triangle executives from the company’s headquarters in Weihai, China.
Triangle Tire North America’s chief executive officer will be announced at the ceremony. The company will add executives to oversee sales, marketing, engineering, finance and customer service functions in the coming weeks and months.
Lima says the joint venture company expects to announce at least one logistics and inventory warehouse to support dealers in the United States in the second quarter of 2016. “Our plan right now is to have multiple warehouses; we’re already looking for a place.”
Triangle Tyre Group is based in Weihai in China’s Shandong province. The company was established in 1976 and sells over 25 million tires annually to customers in more than 160 countries and regions. Triangle Tyre manufactures passenger, light truck, OTR, medium truck and specialty trailer tires.
The company introduced two passenger tires for the North American market in late 2014 and both are available to dealers now, according to Lima. He says the Triangle Tire North America's office in Franklin will be responsible for marketing and distributing all Triangle products to existing and new customers in the United States.
Two years ago, Triangle Tyre opened the A3T technical center in Akron, Ohio, as a first step toward becoming a major player in the North American market. The technical center will lead product development in the North American and European markets, according to the company.
