Toyo Tire & Rubber Co. Ltd. established a wholly owned affiliate for aftermarket and original equipment tire sales in Thailand called Toyo Tire (Thailand) Co. Ltd. (TTT) on April 1, 2013. Original equipment business is scheduled to begin in April; aftermarket tires sales are scheduled to begin in July.
Toyo says that Thailand is Southeast Asia’s largest car market. Up to now, the company has sold Toyo brand tires through local distributors. To capture an increasingly greater share of the growing demand in Thailand, the company established TTT as a local sales subsidiary.
The new operation has 11 employees. With TTT, Toyo plans to increase sales of passenger vehicle aftermarket tires with local sales channels and boost sales of tires mounted onto new vehicles to local car makers. With SUV and pickup trucks comprising over half of the cars owned in Thailand, the company also plans to aggressively promote sales of light truck tires.
Toyo says it is in the process of building a global supply system centered in three key regions: North America, Japan and Asia. Among these, Asia is positioned as the most important market for boosting the sales growth foundation of the tire business unit.
TTT will sell tires imported from Japan along with tires supplied by Toyo Tyre Malaysia Sdn Bhd (TTM), Toyo’s new tire plant in Malaysia scheduled for completion in May 2013. With the establishment of the TTT sales subsidiary in Thailand and the completion of the TTM Malaysia manufacturing and sales company, Toyo says it will have a foothold to aggressively establish local production for local consumption in Southeast Asia.
For more information on Toyo's Asian operations see these links:
Toyo Premium Auto Centres launched in Malaysia
