Bridgestone eyes 25% revenue, 11% volume growth in India by 2026 with focus on premium segment

With India as the fastest growing market in its global portfolio, Japanese tyre manufacturer Bridgestone is targeting revenue growth of 25% while enhancing its volumes by over 11% in the country by 2026 with a focus on premium products and services.

Bridgestone has 130 manufacturing plants and research and development facilities across the globe. It boasts a global revenue of USD 30 billion.

Although the company does not publicly give out revenue figures for India, it registered a 9% rise in 2023 over the previous year, Hiroshi Yoshizane, Managing Director, Bridgestone India, told India Today in an exclusive interaction.

«In the next three years, we want to grow by 25% in revenue. To realise that, we need to have a good product, good distribution channel and good service. These are the key components and we are investing in them,» he added.

Commencing its operations in India in 1996, Bridgestone now has a manufacturing facility each in Indore and Pune It cumulatively produces 30,000 tyres a day, with 19,500 tyres at the Indore plant and the balance 10,500 tyres at the Pune plant. The company has over 700 Bridgestone select outlets and more than 4,000 distribution partners across India.

While Bridgestone sold 9,000,000 tyres in India in 2023, Yoshizane said that the company is projecting the volume to jump by 11% to over 10,000,000 tyres by 2026.

The Indian tyre market has an annual size of 45,000,000 units in terms of volume. This includes 20,000,000 units in the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) segment and 25,000,000 units in the aftermarket segment.

While Bridgestone claimed leadership in the aftermarket segment with a share of 20%, it did not give OEM segment share. However, the company caters to several OEMs with its tyres being used in models like the Tata Harrier, Tata Safari, Maruti Suzuki Jimny, Honda City, Honda Elevate, Toyota Innova and Toyota Fortuner, to name a few.

When asked whether the growth of the SUV segment, which now accounts for more than half of the total cars sold in India, has had an impact on Bridgestone's production activities, Yoshizane said that large vehicles require larger tyres. «We had to adjust our production capabilities to be