Hankook Tire executives announced a strategy to bring the company within the top five tyre manufacturers in the world during its Partner’s Day meeting held this week in Riviera Maya, Mexico.
According to Hankook Tire North America President Rob Williams, Hankook ranks seventh in global tyre sales and sells tyres in about 160 countries. Global sales revenue as of 2022 was $6.2 billion, and the company has a production capacity of 102 million units. Today the company employs approximately 22,000 people and has seven regional headquarters, five R&D centers, eight manufacturing plants and 36 local subsidiaries.
An integral cog in the company’s growth strategy involves Hankook’s 2023 announcement that it will invest $1.6 billion into a multi-phase expansion of its Clarksville, Tenn. tyre production plan. The groundbreaking for Phases 2 and 3 will be this year, and Phase 2 and 3 production will begin in 2025. The expansion will bring total production capacity at the plant up to 11 million units, up from today’s 5 million. Ten million of these will be PLT tyres and 1 million will be commercial truck tyres.
In addition, Williams told dealers that the company’s tyre plant in Hungary will be adding TBR production, and Hankook hopes to reach an 800,000-unit capacity per year there upon the tyre line’s expected completion in 2027. Williams said this will allow the TBR products produced in the Tennessee plant to remain stateside. The company can also source products from South Korea and China on the TBR side and Hungary on the PLT side into the U.S.
