Comerio rolls into Vietnam’s tyre market

Last year, Vietnam’s vehicle sales rose to 244,914, an increase of 55% over 2014, said the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA) early this year. While mainly a two-wheeler market, the number of cars sold has upped in the last few years as the affluence of the population has increased. With a population of around 90 million, the country has emerged as a major market for automotive tyres over the last five years.

All this bodes well for the Vietnamese tyre market, which has bounced back over the past three years. While the two-wheeler tyre segment dominates the market, followed by passenger car and commercial vehicle and OTR tyre segments, the passenger car tyre segment is expected to exhibit fastest growth rate over the next five years, followed by commercial vehicle and OTR tyre segments.

It is against this backdrop that companies like Italian rubber machinery manufacturer Comerio Ercole are eyeing prospects in the Vietnamese market. “We sold two calendaring lines to two Taiwanese factories operating in Vietnam last year,” said Alessio Ceriani, Area Sales Manager. Speaking at the recently held Plastics & Rubber Vietnam show in Ho Chi Minh City, Ceriani said that Comerio had “many customers in Asia” and was using the exhibition to showcase its name in the industry. “Our business extends to China, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, India and Pakistan,” he added.

In Vietnam, Comerio’s recent clients include Cheng Shin Rubber, which markets CST tyres. While it started off with the manufacture of motorcycle tyres at its Vietnamese plant set up in 2007, Cheng Shin has since then added on vehicle tyres, too.

Meanwhile, Comerio’s other client, Kenda Rubber Industrial, operates a US$100 million tyre plant in Ho Nai Industrial Zone in Dong Nai province. It plans to expand and last year received the green light from the Vietnamese government for an investment of US$160 million in a passenger car tyre plant, also in Dong Nai. Its second in the Southeast Asian nation, the plant will use rubber grown in Vietnam for its tyres. Kenda’s latest facility will most likely be its largest tyre factory and boast production capacity rivalling that of its operation in China, the company said recently.

Comerio Ercole, which employs about 189 people at its plant in Busto Arsizio, has a 131 year-long experience in the manufacture of calenders, mixers and mills. In 1995, it moved to a new plant occupying 40,000 sq m, of which 15,000 sq m is the covered area, including workshops where machines and plants are manufactured and assembled, as well as housing test laboratories, spare parts warehouse, technical, commercial and administrative offices.