Sumitomo Rubber to increase tire production at its plant in the United States
Bernice J. Hicks
2 min read
Driven by strong sales of performance tires for SUVs and light trucks in the North American market, Sumitomo Rubber has decided to invest in increasing the production capacity of passenger car tires and light truck tires at our plant in the United States.
With a planned investment of $96 million, this capacity increase will see the plant’s maximum daily production in these tire categories increase from the current 6,500 tires per day to 12,000 tires per day by the end of 2023. At the same time, in response to increasing sales of truck and bus tires in North America, the company also decided to invest USD 26 million (approximately JPY 2.7 billion*) to increase production capacity in these categories in its plant in the United States, increasing from 1,750 tires per day to 2,300 tires. per day by the end of 2024.
In total, an investment of up to 122 million USD will be allocated in order to increase the production capacity and improve the overall productivity of the group’s factory in the United States over the next few years.
The Sumitomo Rubber Group continued to steadily expand the sales of the FALKEN Wildpeak series and other high performance tires in the North American market under the FALKEN brand. The company’s decision to invest in increasing the production capacity of its factory in the United States is not only in response to strong sales, but also reflects its great confidence in the factory, which has made tremendous strides in improving productivity in recent years.
In addition to increasing the production capacity of its factory in the United States, the Sumitomo Rubber Group is also investing in updating the production equipment of its factories in Thailand and Miyazaki (Japan) in order to move to global production. increase in tires for SUVs and light trucks. With this change, these two plants will support the drive to increase sales of SUV and light truck tires in North America by producing 4,150 of these tires per day by the end of 2023 (Thailand) and 1,600 of these tires per day by the end of 2024 (Miyazaki).
