Now, more than a year later, the staff count has doubled with the addition of some high-profile executives, and sales are up 30% year-on-year.

When Tyres & Accessories met up with Giti Tire Europe’s sales director Richard Lyons and marketing manager for Europe Peter Foulkes, news of the Giti Assist truck service programme and the company’s new Heifei factory were top of the agenda. But, these expansion plans are only the beginning, and the word is that an extensive new marketing programme is underway, with a rack full of new product releases scheduled for next year.

By far, the biggest headline is that Giti Tire is going to become the first Chinese manufacturer to set-up a pan-European truck tyre service network. This announcement comes just a year after Hankook gave details of its Truck Masters service network, suggesting that Giti is determined to be seen as fast-growing mid-range alternative, and is more than just another Chinese tyre manufacturer.

Company representatives are keen to point out that, with the largest production capacity in China, plenty of modern machinery and the largest tyre R&D facility in the People’s Republic, Giti Tire is well placed to take the increasingly competitive middle ground in the market.

According to the detailed plans for the programme that T&A has seen, Giti Assist includes all the features we have come to expect from truck servicing networks – a four-life programme, nationwide and even pan-European coverage, and casing collection. Giti Assist aims to “holistically service tyres” and is already working with a number of key fleets across Europe. In these instances Giti products are being directly compared with both the best-known premium brands and the fastest growing mid-range products. According to Lyons these trials have nothing to do with product quality – “our tyres are head and shoulders above the competition,” says Lyons – but are rather an opportunity to show off Giti product’s competitive price-per-kilometre attributes.

The idea to set up an assistance network comes off the back of the company’s common-sense marketing philosophy. “The best way to demonstrate Giti’s product quality is to have the tyres running in the market place. Given our success and volume in Europe so far we are confident we can continue to develop this,” Lyons explained.

The Giti Assist programme was presented at the company’s first ever European dealer conference in Bologna, the day before this year’s Autopromotec exhibition, where around 80 dealers from across Europe congregated to hear plans of the assistance programme and when details of the new production facility were also relayed.

Now that the news of the Giti Assist concept is in the marketplace, the idea is to have signed-up 100 partners by the end of 2007, 300 by the end of 2008 and 500 by the end of 2009.

Across the Atlantic, Giti Tire (USA) Ltd’s decision to join TRIB – the Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau, is symbolic of the company’s intentions to make retreading an integral part of its service offering. In Europe, Giti’s recent appointment of new and retread tyre expert, Lennart LindstrÖm, as technical director, echoes this sentiment.

The Giti Assist announcement comes on the back of a generally increased Giti footprint, which now covers every country in Europe, including tentative agreements in accession countries such as Poland. Negotiations are also understood to be underway as far away as Russia and Ukraine, Georgia and Uzbekistan. Giti’s strategy is to go to market through particular appointed dealers wherever it makes commercial sense to do this.

Up to this point the company appears to have been successful in developing strong business relationships with its distributors. On the marketing side, company representatives recognise that the Giti name and its main commercial vehicle brands – GT Radial and Primewell – have not benefited from the consistent brand strategy they needed. As a result, the company is embarking on a multi-million dollar investment that will see it hire a global agency to raise the profile of its products and bring consistency to its brands.

What most people don’t know is that Giti’s product portfolio is wider than just the well-known GT Radial passenger car brand. And while the company is focusing on GT Radial and Primewell brands, both of which are sold for both TBR and PCR applications, there are at least four on sale in the UK and Europe. Dextero, which is sold in Germany as a virtual private brand – and incidentally will be adding a new studded product to its line-up soon, is an example.

All the additional marketing activity will be supported by continued investment in exhibitions such as the European Transport Show and Reifen China later this year; and the U.K. Commercial Vehicle Show, next spring. According to Peter Foulkes, 2008 will also bring with it a raft of new products (for both commercial vehicles and especially passenger cars). The tyre industry can also expect a large-scale appearance from the company at this year’s forthcoming SEMA show in Las Vegas.

Increased Capacity

In July, Giti Tire broke ground on a new 10 million units-a-year tyre production facility, situated next to its existing tyre production plant in Heifei, Anhui province China. The addition of the latest tyre manufacturing plant brings the company’s total tyre production capacity to over 53 million units, confirming its position as China’s largest tyre manufacturer.

Giti Tire offers a complete range of tyres that it distributes through an extensive sales network in China and abroad. The company exports to over 80 countries around the world.

Since its foundation 1993, Giti Tire has grown to become China’s largest tyre manufacturer in terms of production volume, sales revenue, and product range. Currently, Giti have a total of six completed manufacturing plants in China, operating at global standards in terms of production quality and capacity. The company has vertically integrated into some strategic raw materials production like nylon cord and steel wire in order to mitigate supply risk and quality control.

Giti has made significant investments its Research and Development Centre in recent years. And the level that this laboratory is currently working at is illustrated by the fact that it already employs 160 associates with years of experience in advanced tyre technologies. Word has it that many of these either transferred from a certain well-known Japanese manufacturer or are young-enthusiastic engineers from one of Giti’s university partnerships.

Both of Giti’s two premium brands, GT Radial and Primewell, are accredited to international quality standards including QS9000, ISO9001 and TS 16949. The product range is also said to be “Mission Matched” to ensure the correct tyre is available for each application, whether regional or long haul, mixed service or municipal.