Ostrander Outlines Nokian's Strategy

Nokian Tyres is ‘100% committed’ to growing its business in North America, says Chris Ostrander, senior vice president of the company’s North American division.

In this MTD exclusive, Ostrander discusses the role Nokian’s Dayton, Tenn., plant has played in the company’s growth, Nokian’s new distribution agreement with American Tire Distributors (ATD), investments Nokian is making in research and development and more.

MTD: Can you bring us up to speed on Nokian’s North American business in 2025? What have some of the achievements and challenges been? Nokian’s latest financials mentioned that North America drove the company's overall growth during the third quarter.

Ostrander: The North American business a couple years ago when we had the Russian plant was not as significant of a factor in (Nokian's overall) business. (Editor’s note: Nokian exited its operations in Russia several years ago after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. The company had a plant in Russia that produced around 16 million tires per year. Roughly half of those units were sold within Russia.)

I look at this ramp-up that the (Dayton) plant has gone through and then also what our sales team and what our customers have been able to achieve and we’re pretty proud of that. We’re seeing some very good growth and we’re seeing customers coming back into play.

It's been a rough ride with the disruptions that Russia caused and then to see us come out of this over the last couple of years and ramp up this facility that wasn't expected to do what it's doing today has been pretty exciting. In 2025, we’re making 85% of the product we sell in the U.S. market in Dayton. That historically has never been the case because we got a lot of our product out of the Russia plant.

We just signed the ATD account earlier this year in order to help us get some national distribution as we look to expand and take advantage of our growth of the Dayton plant. (Editor’s note: In September 2025, ATD announced that it would distribute Nokian tires.) That's going to be an integral - part of being able to get our products out to some of the smaller dealers who otherwise wouldn't have access to the Nokian brand. So we’re excited about that, as well. 

Going into Canada, we’ve had a great year up there. We’ve got great products that are going into the Canadian market with our winter and our all-weather (lines) and now that we’ve got Dayton serving Canada, as well, we're seeing some great growth out of the all-season and light truck (tire) products.

Our year-over-year growth numbers – we're pretty proud of those. But we’ve got to focus on the profitability of that, not just for growth. We'll continue to focus us on growth, but it has to be the right growth.

MTD: The new distribution partnership with ATD, I believe, is Nokian's first nationwide distribution agreement. Why did Nokian decide to partner with ATD? Is this a volume play? Is it an effort to expand the brand’s reach?

Ostrander: It’s really more so about the latter, which is brand presence and expanding the brand and getting it out into the market. The volume piece of it is a side effect, if you will. But as I indicated, the Dayton ramp-up is going very smoothly. We have a lot of opportunities to continue to grow that plant. But our intent is not to just load the plant with bad volume. Our intent there is to go to market with the right products and the right mix of products that allows us to be profitable ... and also allows our customers to get better access to our products. ATD, with the 110 warehouses that they have across the country, really allows us to get a good distribution footprint out there.

I think from a client perspective, really the most important thing about the ATD (distribution agreement) is that clients are going to benefit from this because they now have better availability. Some of these independent retailers that would otherwise not have access to the Nokian brand ... they're going to be able to benefit from lower-quantity shipments that were less efficient for Nokian to handle on our own. So I think this is a really good win-win- win across the broad. It allows us to improve our brand awareness as we go forward.

MTD: Nokian has many loyal, longtime independent wholesaler throughout its North American network. How does the company plan to balance distribution through ATD with distribution through its existing independent wholesale partners? Do you see any potential conflicts or synergies?

Ostrander: Obviously, no matter what, there’s always going to be a little conflict and there's always going to be some rumbling about some overlapping distribution, but our relationships ... they’re really our bond in the Nokian culture. I've had the opportunity to meet with something in the neighborhood with 60 customers in my first 60 days here and they are so excited to see that we’re going in the right direction and our reliability and consistency are now there, now that the bumps in the road regarding the whole Russian conflict and having to retool our (Dayton) plant to better service the North American market are behind us. Customers in this market really care about availability, so I don’t see this as a conflict, but more so as an opportunity for us and our customers.

We're not a very well-known brand in the U.S. market. This national presence now gives us a chance to improve our brand awareness by selling our products through the independent channel much more effectively than we would have been able to do on our own because we don't have unlimited capacity. It also opens up the independent channel to receive secondary supply through ATD, which they didn’t have before. So allowing them to not have to carry that inventory (and) allowing them to not miss sales because they otherwise would not have been able to get the product in the 24- to 48-hour timeframe ... really expands their opportunity to sell the product and make more money.

MTD: With the imposition of tariffs on foreign-made products, in what ways does investment in Dayton provide Nokian with a competitive advantage?

Ostrander: Currently, I’d say really the only exposure we have is in winter tires from Europe into the U.S. because of the 15% tariff. But having a local-for-local mindset is very important. And it's not only local-for-local from a manufacturing standpoint. It’s also local-for-local from an R&D perspective, just recently having started up R&D capabilities in the Dayton plant. And we're going to continue to build upon that into 2026.

MTD: Why is it critical for Nokian to enhance its R&D capabilities in North America?

Ostrander: First off, as you know, we are an innovation company. And I think  - because we don't have that brand awareness – in order for us to differentiate the Nokian brand here in North America, (R&D) is going to be critical. Having that R&D presence that is going to focus on the (product) attributes and testing and so forth for our market is critical.

We are a much more meaningful part of the Nokian strategy than we were before the Russia exit, so our focus on local-for-local in all facets of our business has to be a critical advantage for us going forward. These investments and our future commitment to winning in this market while helping our customers grow is really the right thing to do, with the right portfolio of products, and I’m really excited about that.

MTD: What trends are you seeing in the North American tire market and how are they impacting Nokian?

Ostrander: I think everybody obviously is seeing some of the inflationary pressures. I've heard the word ‘buy-down’ many times and I would say there is definitely that cost-consciousness in the market. There's no doubt about that. I think the tariff impact has created lot of uncertainty and disruption in the market. That is probably more of a short-term issue. That's why we’re seeing so much of the Asian product coming into the market right now. As we deal with these things that are short-term, how we navigate those in working with our clients is going to be very important.

One of the other major trends that everybody is seeing is the rim diameter transition. We look at 18-inch and above (category) and the profitability associated with those versus some of the smaller tires. And the SKU proliferation is really something that every company is going to have to learn to deal with. And we have a major focus on dealing and winning in that segment going forward.

MTD: What opportunities do you see for Nokian in North America? You mentioned high- diameter tires, we talked about the Dayton plant’s influence and impact and the local-for-local strategy. Anything else that you see on the horizon for the company?

Ostrander: We're coming out of making investments of over $800 million euros (over $925 million USD) over the last three years to retool this company on the Romania plant, the Finland plant and the U.S plant. (Editor’s note: Nokian’s plant in Romania produced its first tire in July 2024.) We're really focused now on profitable growth - on utilizing that capacity that we’ve got to make sure we're maximizing our return on investment.

When I look at our company’s history, obviously we’re a winter tire company. Everybody knows that. But it's a great advantage for us because of the technology and innovation that goes into winter tires, we leverage that technology and innovation to grow what we’re doing with regards to the light truck and all-season segments to think totally differently than what the rest of the market, which has grown up in those segments, has done. It's really giving us a good opportunity to look at things differently as we build out our portfolio in North America.

Right now, the Dayton plant has over 80% (market) coverage and we're going to continue to add upon that within the all-season and light truck (tire) segments. One of the things that we’re continuing to focus on is not being an over-distributed product, so that is a really great opportunity for us to help our clients maximize their go-to-market approach and to improve their profitability. What we’re doing with partnering with the right customers to accelerate that process is going to be very important.

MTD: What can we expect to see from Nokian the rest of this year and next year?

Ostrander: We’ve had some major, really unexpected bumps in the road the last few years and I'm unbelievably thankful for our customers that have been there for us and have recommitted to Nokian going forward. Looking at this from an operations perceptive, it’s very fun to see ... going out and meeting with these clients, (who are) saying, ‘We’re rooting for you.’ There's such a huge upside. We are 100% dedicated to growing this North American market.