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HUNGARY
Marso – A Big Player in Tyres
Hungarian retreaders have invested in shearography and that, of those who have, not all make 100 per cent use of the machinery. However, at Marso, as part of the annually audited Bandag process, shearography is part of the process for every tyre that goes through the plant.
Space on the site at the Marso HQ is not at a premium, and the new plant stands alone on the site and has ample room for storage of both incoming casings and outgoing retreads, all under cover. Production at Marso is expected to be around 7,500 units in 2015, which is slightly down on 2014. The reasons are much the same here as at the other plants, Chinese tyres being the main culprit.
commented, “There is of course the issue of the cheap Chinese tyres. This impacts on every tyre manufacturer and supplier in Europe as there is a real need to increase prices to create space for research and development funding, but prices are being held back by the Chinese tyres, and that is damaging the industry in the long term. The tyre manufacturers must surely do something in Brussels to bring about changes. However, we have to remember that they also do business in China and import their own brands of tyres from China so they are in a very difficult position. “On the subject of Ukraine,” continued János Tółh, “this has had a small impact. Perhaps it is more of an issue for the tyre
Based on the outskirts of Nyíregyháza, a stone’s throw away from Hungary’s West-East M3 motorway sits the head office, warehouse and retread plant of Hungary’s largest tyre wholesaler, Marso.
Marso was established in 1990, directly after the free markets were fully opened in Hungary. Founder Sándor Somlai still heads up the company 25 years down the line. Initially, Marso offered agricultural tyres, but as the business grew, its coverage expanded until today
Marso currently has a 10 billion Florint turnover (32.25M Euro). The retread plant has recently been relocated on the Nyíregyháza site from an old corrugated shed to a purpose built warehouse and retread facility. It is a traditional Bandag operation with all the normal components of a Bandag line from the inspection and shearography through to the 22 tyre autoclave. The most recent addition to the line has been the introduction of a new automated Bandag buffer that has helped
Marso’s Bandag plant is a standalone operation set in a brand new facility at the company HQ
where the company can supply tyres for all market sectors in Hungary from motorcycle, through car and truck to agricultural, earthmover and industrial tyres. To say the range on offer is comprehensive is an understatement. Its truck and agricultural catalogue alone runs to some 244 pages.
Marso is a totally Hungarian owned company, and claims itself to be the highest turnover independent tyre business in the country. It has 16 outlets, 22 direct-to-customer service points, six Marso Franchise Partners and a sixty member network of retailers and fitters. It also operates a Bandag retread plant at Nyíregyháza.
speed up production and improve quality.
Retreading was started by Marso 11 years ago. It was a new development for the company, and they opted straight away for a Bandag operation. In the past two years Marso has invested some 700,000 Euro in developing the plant, with its new building, and a new automated buffer plus all the updated permissions and certifications and tests for the new plant. Marso now needs to start to see a return on this investment, and it is committed to developing the retread market share to match the capacity of the plant that it has invested in.
It is worth noting that not all
However, the road out to Nyíregyháza and Debrecin was remarkably quiet, and another reason for the drop in trade, although not admitted to by anyone we spoke to, could be the downturn in trade with the Ukraine and the embargo on trade with Russia. Another possible factor is that to the North of Hungary, Slovakia has completed a new motorway that runs all the way to the Ukraine, and there is a belief that much traffic which, in the past, travelled via Hungary, now goes through Slovakia.
The plant at Marso is capable of 3 loads of 22 tyres per shift, so on a single shift it could produce 66 tyres per day, so is currently operating at less than half of one shift’s capacity. However, with Marso being the market leader in tyres in Hungary, it is well positioned to take up some of the potential market growth if and when retreading grows, and with just a third of truck tyres being retreaded, there is ample room for market growth once the Chinese tyre question has been addressed. On the challenges at Marso, retread plant manager János Tółh
manufacturers supplying the Ukraine, but the Ukrainian trucks are not such frequent visitors to Hungarian roads nowadays, but the impact has been low level. “Casings are not really a problem here in Hungary either. With the retread rate being so much lower than the new tyre supply, we can get all the casings that we need in Hungary. Perhaps the only issue we have from time to time is a shortage of high-load rated casings demanded by the bus operators. They like to have retreads that have casings that exceed the required specifications and which had tougher sidewalls, so there we can have shortages at times.
“Generally though, we have been able to reduce the cost of our casings because there is an oversupply. People are coming to us offering us casings and we are able to drive the price down as supply exceeds demand at the moment. That helps us in dealing with the competition from Chinese tyres. However, our goal is to develop the CoC business that we do through our truck service centres across Hungary.
Marso’s Commercial Tyre Director AtillaSzojka (left) and retread plant manager János Tółh
38 Retreading Business