More than half of the tires that will be produced at Qingdao Doublestar Tire Industrial Co. Ltd.’s soon-to-open plant in Cambodia will ship to the U.S. market.
“As we enlarge our capacity, we can do more,” Linda Deng, Qingdao Doublestar’s vice president and chair of Doublestar Cambodia, recently told MTD.
Doublestar, which is based in Qingdao, China, and has been in business for nearly 100 years, broke ground on the plant, the company’s fourth factory, last month.
Doublestar’s other plants are located in China.
Deng says the Cambodia facility will be up and running by the end of 2023.
The factory will initially build radial truck and bus tires “and during the first quarter of 2024 will start producing” passenger tires, she said.
The plant’s annual truck and bus tire production capacity target will be 1.5 million units. Target capacity for passenger tire production will be seven million units a year.
Doublestar will invest around $200 million in the first phase of the plant, according to Deng. “In the first stage, we will focus on our factory brands – Doublestar, Headway and Aosen. We also will produce private brand products.”
The company “has not decided” if the plant will manufacture Kumho brand tires. (Doublestar acquired majority share of Kumho Tire Co. Inc., parent of Kumho Tire USA, in 2018.)
The facility is a joint venture between Doublestar and UBE, a company that manages the industrial park where the plant is located. Doublestar owns 80% of the venture.
“We chose Cambodia for several reasons,” Deng told MTD. “First, the political environment in Cambodia is very stable, which is important for an overseas factory.
“Second, Cambodia has an abundance of natural resources,” which helps save on raw material and transportation costs, she said.
“The third (reason) is the population of Cambodia is young and local people are eager for job opportunities. The fourth is that the plant will be close to (the) Ho Chi Minh sea port (in Vietnam), so it’s very convenient for exporting.”
Deng told MTD that Doublestar senior management believes it’s important to boost the company’s presence in the U.S. “This is a very good beginning. We would like to let more U.S. tire dealers know about Doublestar.”
“We understand the U.S. market and we tailor our products for the U.S. market,” said Joshua Liu, assistant general manager and overseas channel director, Doublestar.
“We have low rolling resistance and long mileage TBR tires especially for the U.S. We also have an electric vehicle tire for the U.S. market,” which will be manufactured at the new Cambodia plant.
“We will bring a lot of new and also updated products to the U.S.”
Doublestar says it established the industry’s first “4.0 intelligent” manufacturing plant – a facility in Qingdao - in 2016.
The company’s current TBR production capacity is six million units per year. Doublestar’s annual passenger tire manufacturing capacity is 20 million tires.
