International demand is robust and the company has a huge opportunity to grow overseas, managing director Anant Goenka told ET in a recent interview. “We can more than double our sales in Europe over a period of 2-3 years.”
He added: “There is an antidumping duty on Chinese tyres in the US and Europe. That’s why we are very optimistic about international business.”
Goenka expects the international business to grow at a compounded annual rate of 20% over the coming few years.
This will also come as a respite for the company when high input costs have put pressure on margins and impacted domestic demand. Rubber and crude oil prices have been on the boil of late, and the company attributed its ₹20 crore loss in the October-December quarter to high input costs.
The company gets a fifth of its revenue from overseas, with a quarter of that coming from Europe.
To generate incremental sales from the continent, Ceat plans to enter markets like Germany and France and also launch new varieties of tyres in existing markets, Goenka said.
Meanwhile, the company is developing a range of tyres specifically for the US which should be ready in the coming 12-18 months, he said.
There is also ample demand for off-highway tyres from these markets, as per Goenka. “There is a fair amount of shortage of off-highway tyres in the market at this point of time. And our capacities are fully utilised,” he said, adding that the company will be increasing its manufacturing capacity in the off-highway segment.
