Hankook Tire starts to supply Porsche, eyes luxury market

Hankook Tire, the nation’s largest tire-maker, has started to supply tires to Porsche for its new SUV sports car Macan from this year, the company said Tuesday.

“Supplying the OE tire to Porsche means that Hankook Tire’s techniques and brand value are well recognized in the global market,” Suh Seung-hwa, vice chairman and CEO, said Tuesday.

The new Ventus S1 evo2 SUV, which will be supplied for Porsche’s Macan, has a dual-layer tread that minimizes the effects of wear by exposing high grip rubber as the tire tread wears, giving it improved performance on wet surfaces, the firm said. 

It took four years to develop the ultrahigh-performance tire.

Hankook’s continuous investment in research and development enabled it to compete with top-tier brands, the CEO said.

Hankook called the supply agreement with Porsche a “giant step” but also a “starting point” as it aims to expand its supply relationship with the German automaker beyond Macan.

“Our ultimate goal is to supply tires for Porsche’s flagship 911 series. I believe it won’t take too long to get to that stage,” said Woo Byung-il, vice president of global OE at Hankook Tire.

By adding Porsche to its OE mix, Hankook supplies Germany’s top four auto brands, including Mercedes-Benz, Audi and BMW.

It also hopes to provide OE fitments to supercar brands like Ferrari and Lamborghini by 2020. “Hankook’s engineers will have a technical experts meeting with one of the automakers at end of this month to discuss matters regarding supply in the future,” said Woo.

The domestic sales account for 15 percent and the remaining 85 percent comes from overseas sales. Sales in Europe account for 35 percent of the total, according to the company.

The world’s seventh-largest tire maker posted 6.7 trillion won ($6.1 billion) in sales and 1 trillion won in operating profit in 2014.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)