India is much more than just a tire market for us: Michelin’s Vitor Silva

Chennai: French tire maker Michelin said that India is more than just a tire market for the company and is one of the only regions where there is “real potential for exponential growth,” a CEO of the company told ET.

The Clermont-Ferrand headquarters unveiled its first Made-in-India Passage car band on Tuesday that was produced in its factory in Tamil Nadu intended for Premium cars, including SUVs, and will be available in the first half of 2026.

The company underlined the importance of the Indian market as one where the promising growth sees and plans to ride the growing wave of popularity for medium -sized SUVs and premium vehicles in the country.

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He also added that India will also be an important hub for the worldwide supply chain of the company. He said that Michelin would look at India to buy many of the 200 different materials that go into a band. He underlined the importance of the resilience of the Supply Chain and said that India will play a major role in building this resilience for the global supply chain by Michelin. “

“There are many areas where India nowadays is a global player in terms of industrial supply chains,” Silva said. “As an example, Carbon Black. There are (also) other areas in steel and chemical products where we can see India one of the most important players in our global supply chain.” From the tire portfolio, Michelin, the LTX Trail ST, Pilot Sport 4 SUV, Pilot Sport 5 and Primacy 5 Tires in the Chennai factory. The company has grown the Indian passage market. Better infrastructure, increasing disposable income, the preference of consumers of the growing wish of the Indian middle class to more versatile, broad and function-rich vehicles, etc. Promote growth and premiumization.

“With better roads, distances have been shortened and the expectations of performance and safety are increased. For Michelin, the Focus area is SUVs and large cars with tires above 16 centimeters, and the brand is very enthusiastic about the prospect of offering high-quality Made-in-India Michelin tires,” said Michelin director Shantanu Desshpande.

Michelin has been producing tires for trucks and buses from the Tamil Nadu factory for more than ten years now. Last year in September Michelin had announced an investment of RS 564 Crore to expand the production capacity in his Tamil Nadu factory, past truck and bus tires to tires for passenger vehicle.

Now the company has made an extra investment of more than RS 100 crores for the expansion, which brings the total investment for the tire capacity of the passenger car to RS 686 Crore. This is on top of the RS 2,800 Crore that was invested in the factory, which was inaugurated in 2009. The factory now has a total production capacity of tires of 54,000 tons.