Reliable, profitable and consistent

Next Article

TPMS: Chrysler Pacifica – 2022

A THREE-WORD GAMEPLAN FOR PRINX CHENGSHAN’S NEW NORTH AMERICAN LEADER

Three years after Prinx Chengshan Tire North America Inc. introduced a pair of new tire brands to North America, the tiremaker hired Samuel Felberbaum last summer to serve as its president and usher in the next growth phase.

Felberbaum, a 30-year veteran of the tire industry who had most recently spent eight years working for Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp., leads a team that is off and running.

By the end of the year, Prinx expects to increase its current offering of 350 SKUs to more than 400. And most of those SKUs are coming from a three-year-old plant the company is hungry to fill with orders.

Once a one-million-unit, automated warehouse comes online, the tiremaker expects to have passenger and light truck tires on the shelf ready for immediate shipment, cutting turnaround time on those orders by 30 days.

There are a lot of moving parts, but in his first trade press interview, Felberbaum says it all boils down to some simple tasks.

“We’re focused on being best-in-class for our segment. I think if we’re able to be recognized as that, where distributors and retailers can both make an attractive profit on our products, and we do what we say we’re going to do, I think we’re going to be in real good shape.

“We’re not going to be the deal of the day or the lowest price. There’s always somebody that could be lower. But our goal (is to) have a consistent program (for) retailers and distributors” to offer their customers.

New Products

This year, the company will bring new passenger, light truck and commercial truck tires to the North American market.

An all-weather tire is on the docket for both the U.S. and Canada, as is a Canadaonly winter tire line. On the commercial side, a long-haul steer tire that fleets have been testing over the past nine months will become available in the third quarter of 2023. A new severe service trailer tire for spread-axle applications in multiple sizes, including 255/7022.5, will join the catalog. The company will add key sizes to existing tread patterns, too.

Ken Coltrane, vice president of marketing and product development, says one of the company’s product priorities last year was a tire for last-mile delivery, the Tormenta LMD. He sees adding a tire for electric vehicles (EVs) on the horizon soon.

“We make EV tires for the China market and I believe they’re sold in some other markets, as well. It’s growing here and we will have it here. We just felt that priority was better placed on tires for last-mile delivery, because that’s absolutely huge right now. EV will get bigger and the volume will be there as we move on down the road. We’ll probably do EV in 2024.”

Felberbaum says, “We’re working hard to meet the demands for both the PLT and TBR markets simultaneously. Having a facility and the backing of the head office to do that is really crucial for our success.”

The “facility” he mentions is Prinx Chengshan’s plant in Thailand, which opened in 2020 with the capacity to produce 800,000 truck tires and four million passenger tires a year. It’s the company’s first production facility outside of China and it opened a year after Prinx Chenghsan introduced both the Prinx and Fortune brands to North America.

Felberbaum says nearly every tire Prinx Chengshan makes for the North American market is manufactured in Thailand. The exceptions are semi-steel ST radial tires and the new winter tire for Canada, both of which will be produced in China. (The company’s all-steel ST tires are manufactured in Thailand.)

Samuel Felberbaum says the Fortune and Prinx brands are “highquality products” with complete and still-growing lineups.

Dealer Network

Plenty of tiremakers use motorsports as a marketing avenue. Ken Coltrane says the Fortune brand is experimenting with pickleball.

Felberbaum and his team are working to expand the company’s existing network of dealers for the Fortune brand. TBC Corp. is the national distributor of the Prinx brand and was “instrumental” in building the brand.

“TBC has been a great partner for us to help get the brand launched nationally,” says Felberbaum.

With Fortune, the company is relying on regional tire distributors to power its sales. At this point, the company’s strongest reach is in the southern U.S. and it is looking to fill in gaps and broaden its coverage in the northern half of the country, as well as in Canada.

Prinx Chengshan doesn’t have its own warehouses in the U.S. yet, so its priority is to work with distributors who can buy container loads of tires at a time. Then with the help of those distributors, the hope is to push the Fortune brand out to more retailers across the country.

Felberbaum says his sales team is on the ground and they’re willing to work