Japanese tyre maker Yokohama’s fully owned subsidiary, Yokohama India, has tied with M/S Tyre Plaza to open Kerala’s first Yokohama Club Network (YCN) store. Located at Trichur alongside the most important highway of Kerala, the new YCN is well suited to service customers with latest technology equipments along with comfortable ambience. The newly opened YCN also showcases latest and large variety of alloy wheels to jazz up one’s existing ride.
Globally other than replacement tyres business, Yokohama tyres is original equipment suppliers to many top of the line car manufacturers like Audi, Honda, Mercedes Benz, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Porsche, Suzuki and Toyota.
Speaking about this latest YCN store, Vinodh Venu, Proprietor Tyre Plaza said, “We decided to partner with Yokohama India for providing excellent tyre buying experience through newly renovated retail showroom. Yokohama tyres are designed to match needs of Indian motorist in all possible aspects.”
YCN is a specialized network based on Yokohama’s global philosophy to develop Point Of Sales to provide world class tyre buying experience. Yokohama India currently has more than 650 point of sales which also includes 22 Yokohama Club Network (YCN) across length and breadth of India.
Yokohama India plans to double its YCN strength nationally by the end of 2014. The Global Tyre major is currently operating on 2% of the total market share in India. While tube type tyres still contribute a considerable share of the total passenger car radial market, Yokohama India is only competing in the tubeless tyre market.
Expressing his views about the strategy, Takashi Fujino, Managing Director, Yokohama India said, “With the fast transformation of market from tube type tyres to tubeless tyres, Yokohama India is looking at 5% market share in the near future to support mid-term management plan.”
“The YCN will provide all our new offerings including The Yokohama Earth-1 tyre, which is especially ‘Designed for India’ keeping the diverse road conditions in mind and will cater to most of the cars in B, B+ and C-segments, as well as the Geolandar series ” Fujino further added.
Yokohama India recently inaugurated its first India manufacturing unit. Built with an investment of over Rs.300 crore, this new manufacturing unit at Bahadurgarh will manufacture The Yokohama Earth-1 tyres, designed to cater to the comfort and economy segment along with S. drive.