A Porsche Cayenne SUV equipped with Hankook Tire’s Ventus S1 evo 3 SUV tires. (image: Hankook Tire)
SEOUL, Oct. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — Hankook Tire & Technology Co., the world’s sixth-largest tiremaker by sales, said Monday it began to supply tires for Porsche’s Cayenne sport utility vehicle in June.
Hankook Tire supplies the high-performance Ventus S1 evo 3 SUV tires for the high-performance Cayenne in the form of original equipment (OE) tires, the company said in a statement.
The company didn’t give an exact time frame for the supply deal or the value of the deal.
The tiremaker has supplied OE tires to Porsche’s crossover SUV Macan since April 2015, proving the quality of its tires in the global market, the statement said.
Supplying OE tires to car manufacturers does not generate much revenue for tiremakers, but securing big companies as clients helps improve their brand image and can lead to the raising of product prices down the line.
For tiremakers, it is more profitable to sell replacement equipment (RE) tires in after-sales markets.
To enhance its global brand image, the tiremaker has shipped products to nearly 50 foreign carmakers, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.
In the January-June period, Hankook’s net profit plunged 37 percent to 205 billion won (US$172 million) from 324 billion won a year earlier.
Hankook Tire earns over 80 percent of its total revenue from abroad.
It has eight plants — two in South Korea, one in Hungary, one in the United States, three in China and one in Indonesia — whose combined capacity reaches 102 million tires.
(Yonhap)
