Hankook Plans to Open Manufacturing Unit in United States

United States: South Korean based leading tire manufacturer, Hankook, has planned to open plant in United States by 2018. The company has planned to increase its OE presence in North America by initiating production at Clarksville plant with a capacity of 16,000 units per day. As per Hankook officials, the factory is expected to generate USD500 million in annual sales revenue at full capacity.

“Next year we are going to beef up our supply to Japanese makers, so our performance in the OE sector will be transformed to [the] replacement market” said by Jae Bum Park, senior vice president, Hankook Tire America Corp.

“The estimation is the market is not going to grow much”, “For us, it's exciting because the [Clarksville] plant will be producing product in the first quarter of next year. We have new OE fitments, we have a number of projects in place for next year," said by Shawn Denlein, senior vice president, Hankook Tire America Corp.

As per TechSci Research, Hankook is already a renowned tire brand in the United States. By starting a new manufacturing plant in the United States, the company is targeting to further expand its reach across the entire North America, post to 2018. Moreover, Hankook would also able to meet confounding demand for tires emerging in the country, which would assist the company to proliferate its sales in coming years across United States.

According to a recent report published by TechSci Research, “United States Tire Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021”, the vehicle fleet of the country is dominated by passenger car segment, followed by light commercial vehicles, medium and heavy commercial vehicles, off-the-Road (OTR) vehicles and two-wheeler segment. As a result, the passenger car tire segment held the largest volume share in the country’s tire market in 2015, and its dominance is anticipated to continue during the forecast period as well. Additionally, gross national income of the country increased from US$50,450 in 2011 to US$54,960 in 2015, as per the data released by World Bank.