Hankook Tire supplies tires for Mercedes-Benz's S-Class sedan

Hankook Tire & Technology Co., the world's sixth-largest tiremaker by sales, said Tuesday it started supplying tires for Mercedes-Benz's S-Class sedan last year.

Hankook Tire has been providing the high-performance tires, including Ventus S1 Evo3 and Ventus S1 Evo3 run-flat products, since early last year in the form of original equipment (OE) products for the luxury sedan, the company said in a statement.

To enhance its global brand image, the tiremaker has provided its OE tire products for 320 kinds of vehicles of nearly 50 foreign carmakers, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.

Supplying OE tires to car manufacturers does not generate much revenue for tiremakers but securing big companies as clients helps improve their brand image, and can lead to boosting brand awareness and a rise in product prices down the line.

For tiremakers, it is more profitable to sell replacement equipment tires in after-sales markets.

Hankook Tire earns over 80 percent of its total revenue from abroad.

It has eight plants -- two in South Korea, one in Hungary, one in the United States, three in China and one in Indonesia -- whose combined capacity reaches 102 million tires per year. (Yonhap)