MUMBAI, India—Apollo Tyres Ltd. will ramp up production at its recently opened plant in Hungary, expecting to reach 16,000 passenger car tires by second half of its fiscal year 2019.
In an Aug. 7 conference call to discuss the first quarter of its fiscal 2018, Chief Financial Officer Gaurav Kumar said the first truck tire, however, is not expected to be produced before the 2019 financial year.
In terms of product mix at the Hungary plant, Kumar said supplies to OEMs had already started, but he declined to give further specifics or names.
"And going forward, those numbers will increase as we are looking to get into more OEMs as part of our overall strategy," he added.
According to the CFO, Apollo expects the Hungary plant to stabilize by the final quarter of the current financial year ending in March 2018.
This past April, the Indian tire maker officially opened its $505 million production plant in Gyongyoshalasz, Hungary, which will have the capacity to produce 5.5 million passenger and light truck tires and 675,000 commercial vehicle tires per year once phase I is complete. It will produce both the Vredestein and Apollo brand of tires for the European market.