Speech delivered by Onkar S. Kanwar, Chairman, Apollo Tyres, at the company’s 46th AGM held in Kochi
Before I talk about the happenings at your company during the year, I would like to mention that Kerala has always been extremely close to my heart. It is our foundation… our roots. I was personally devastated as the State witnessed one of its worst floods in recent times. However, I was proud to see that all of our employees around the world rose to the challenge and contributed money, material and time to offer relief to the people whose lives were severely affected by the calamity. Our efforts received much appreciation from all stakeholders.
Today, India lies on the cusp of great opportunity. A strong government is in place with a renewed mandate and a commitment to keep India at the top of the global economic order. The environment around us is not easy, with trade wars, protectionism and uncertainty around the world. But India has the potential, the ability and the leadership to break free of these shackles and lead global economic growth.
Like the country, at Apollo too everyone has been working with a single-minded focus to realize our Vision 2020 of becoming ‘a Premier tyre company with a diversified and multinational presence’. To achieve our vision, we continued to focus on our key objectives of ‘building leadership in India’, ‘premiumisation in Europe’, and ‘exploring strategically attractive markets where we are currently not represented’ during the year.
In the world of today, a strong brand is a guarantee of success for any business. We have undertaken multiple initiatives over the past few years to create a strong, powerful Apollo brand in India and setting the foundations of strong ‘Vredestein’ and ‘Apollo’ brands in Europe. We have associated the Apollo brand with football and have strong associations with leading teams in India and with global powerhouse Manchester United as its official tyre partner. The year saw a beginning of a new relationship as we welcomed Sachin Tendulkar, an icon in the Indian and global cricketing world, to the Apollo family. We are sure that the association with the legend will help us to increase our brand visibility even as we work together to drive home your company’s own message of making every journey a safe and inspiring one.
The financial year was important for us as we achieved a key milestone as JD Power, the gold standard in customer satisfaction survey for tyre companies, ranked your company the highest in the most key segment in India. This was a solid reaffirmation from our customers across the country about the best in class and technologically advanced products offered by your company. Your company has a market share of 30% in the OE segment in India for small and midsized cars and you will see the company’s tyres OE fitted in eight of the top 10 cars being sold in India.
I, along with your company, am a firm believer of our key value ‘Care for Society’, as each employee behaves and acts in a socially responsible manner. During the year, we continued to work on empowering our communities and offering better health care facilities for our trucking community. While your company continued to be felicitated with prestigious awards for its work on CSR, I would like to highlight three initiatives which swell my heart with pride on the sterling work being done by your company’s CSR team. Your company established a one-of-its-kind ‘Farmer Producer’ organisation for organic farming for women farmers under the Livelihood for Underprivileged Women initiative, and this is supporting numerous women in their empowerment journey. This is the only initiative of this kind in Gujarat, and I am told that possibly in the whole of India where women farmers are working on organic form of farming. Further, your company’s honey making unit in Kottayam, Kerala, got certified to the international standard on Food Safety Systems Certification (FSSC), a rare feat in this area. Finally, I am proud to mention that recently UNICEF has partnered with your company to promote awareness on health amongst women. The partnership is a recognition at a global level by an agency like UNICEF on the work being done by your company.
There are certainly uncertain times ahead, yet the team continues to be bullish about the growth prospects. Your company has invested close to Rs. 4,000 crores in a new greenfield facility in Hungary and has also earmarked Rs. 3,800 crores for a greenfield project in Andhra Pradesh. We also committed to upgrading our existing manufacturing plant in Chennai, expanding truck tyre radial production to 12,000 units a day from the earlier 6,000 units. While in India, we are achieving leadership position in multiple segments, we are confident of gaining traction in Europe in the coming years as we start catering to the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) from the Hungary plant.
Your company is the only Indian company which supplies to various OEMs in Europe like Volkswagen, Ford and Audi. The strategy of replicating our success with OEMs in India will go hand in hand with increasing our market share in the replacement markets.
I cannot close the address without thanking each one of you for having been a partner in this ongoing journey. The support that we continue to receive from our banks, financial institutions and the various State Governments we operate in, as also national governments in various countries, enable us to grow and succeed.