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Continental Timisoara adjusts production following orders' cut

Continental, the biggest local car tyre manufacturer, has announced it will adjust production at its Timisoara-based plant (north-west of Bucharest), following the cut in orders from its customers such as Automobile Dacia, Ford, GM or VW, which have suspended their production on limited periods, the daily Ziarul financiar reads on Thursday.

The second player in the top of the local tyre manufacturers, Michelin Romania has recently broken the news that it would stop for two weeks in December its production at the tyres and metallic cord plant in Zalau (north-west of Bucharest).

Continental Timisoara estimated at the beginning of 2008 that it would bring forth about 13 million tyres this year, but due to the current global financial crisis, the output is altered on a daily basis, depending on the orders.

'Still, the portfolio of partners and customers allow us to minimize the direct impact and the negative consequences', the general manager of Continental Timisoara Thierry Wipff told the above mentioned daily.

The company's representatives did not specify how important the already completed adjustments are, but did not add that production would be stopped. Continental is delivering in Romania first equipping tyres for the Dacia Logan brand and comercializes on the replacement market more than 600,000 tyres.

'All in all, including both endowment equipments from the plant and the replacement ones we reached an amount of sales of about 1.3 million tyres for cars in Romania', the market manager Martin Zaloudek said.

Deliveries to the Automobile Dacia plant represent less than 5 pct of the Timisoara-based plant's tyres output. From the five plants it operates in Romania, Continental also delivers to Dacia electronic control units, systems of pipes for the cars' servodirection and components for the chassis and safety. In its five plants and two engineering centers, Continental hires more than 6,500 employees.

Even if the volume of tyres sent to the car makers has cut in the past two months, Continental shows that its sales on the replacement market are not affected, they even benefit of the impulse of the massive import of second-hand cars.

According to Zaloudek, the Romanian consumer has begun to be more interested by acquiring tyres for the winter season following the education campaigns developed by producers and due to the fact that they are transiting more and more the European countries which demand the equipping with specific tyres for the winter. The transformation in the consumer's profile is found in the market data as well. According to the estimates of Continental, the winter tyres market will reach 800,000 units this season, on the rise by 40 pct against last year.

'The market is characterized by two large seasons: summer and winter. It is normal for a dynamic to exist on this market, namely the distributors and the retailers do supply themselves with summer tyres over January - March, their selling to the final consumer being to take place mainly in April - June', Zaloudek said. The total tyre market was estimated at about 2.4 million units, out of which 1.6 million units are summer tyres.

The Continental Group has registered last year in Romania some 489 million euros in turnover and a net profit of 14 million euros, twice smaller than the one reported in the previous year.

 

Sursa: http://www.rompress.ro

Tags: million market tyres following timisoara production continental car

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