Apollo Enters Off-Take Deal for High-End Farm Tires After Dutch Plant Closure

Apollo Tyres has secured an off-take deal to maintain supplies of high-end agricultural tires following the closure of its Enschede plant in the Netherlands. The company’s finance chief, Gaurav Kumar, stated that establishing a new plant in India is not economically viable due to lack of scale. The Enschede plant, which had a capacity of around 20 tonnes per day, was closed due to higher energy and labour costs, weaker demand, and pricing pressure from low-cost competitors. Apollo has identified an off-take partner to supply the high-end farm tires, with Kumar mentioning that the partner is located ‘at the cusp of Asia and Europe’. The company expects to continue with this arrangement in the medium term. Additionally, Apollo has transferred production of its Spacemaster spare tire to its Baroda plant in India, which has already secured OEM approvals. The financial and operational benefits of the Enschede restructuring are expected to materialize from the second half of the current financial year.