Apollo Tyres Ltd announced the opening up of its global R&D center in Enschede, the Netherlands.
The state-of-the-art facility will serve as a hub for the development and testing of car and van tires for the company’s Apollo, Vredestein and Dunlop all product brands.
Apollo Tyres Global R&D BV will start operations with 100 R&D specialists from around the world, including 20 car tire specialists from India and South Africa. That number will be scaled-up to nearly 150 people.
“The Global R&D Centre is an important milestone in our journey to become a $6 billion tire company by 2016. This world-class center will play a key role in bringing cutting-edge technology and innovation in the development of car and van tires of the future,” says Onkar Kanwar, chairman, Apollo Tyres Ltd.
Recently, Apollo Tyres restructured its R&D team to connect the entire organization via two major R&D centres for commercial and passenger car tires. In line with this strategy, the company is bringing together its R&D resources comprising almost 250 people in Africa, Europe and India to create two global R&D hubs, Enschede, the Netherlands for car and van tires and Chennai, India for commercial vehicle tires.
The move is part of the company’s global expansion plans (see Global expansion: Apollo Tyres to invest $1 billion).
