The former Russian Bridgestone plant will begin producing tires under the Gislaved brand

According to the plan, production of tires under the new brand will begin at the Ulyanovsk site in November of this year.

The Japanese company Bridgestone officially announced plans to leave the Russian market in the fall of 2022: at that time, the tire maker began looking for a buyer for its assets in the Russian Federation, including the Ulyanovsk plant, which was put on hold back in March of the same year. The buyer of Bridgestone's local business became known in June 2023: the Russian holding S8 Capital acted as its buyer. Let us recall that he had previously bought the local assets of Continental and the originally Russian company Cordiant.

In the photo: the Gislaved tire plant in Kaluga

Now Kommersant reports that the new owner is preparing to restart the enterprise in Ulyanovsk relatively soon. It is expected that the conveyor will “come to life” in November of this year, Cordiant General Director Vadim Volodin told the publication. It is known that the local site will produce tires under the Gislaved brand, and the plant itself will receive the corresponding name.

Let us remind you that another Russian site that is part of the tire cluster is already producing tires under the Gislaved brand — we are talking about the former Continental plant, which is located in Kaluga. Previously, Kolesa.ru told in more detail about how work is currently going on at this enterprise.

Cordiant said that the plant in Ulyanovsk will produce tires belonging to the mass and premium segments, including under the Gislaved brand. Vadim Volodin noted that the company is now adapting recipes, testing, as well as preparing for commissioning work in order to launch the production of premium products.

Recall that Bridgestone launched a plant in Ulyanovsk in 2016, at that time investments in production amounted to about 12.5 billion rubles. The capacity of this site is designed to produce 2.4 million tires annually. Earlier, the head of Cordiant noted that according to the plan, 1.2 million tires should roll off the assembly line of the Ulyanovsk enterprise in 2025.

Today, the Cordiant company is the second player in the tire market in the Russian Federation in terms of capacity, it is second only to Tatneft with the Ikon Tires plant (the former owner is the Finnish tire manufacturer Nokian). Thus, the leader’s figure is 17.5 million tires per year, the “silver” owner has 15 million tires per year.

According to Cordiant’s calculations, in 2023 the Russian passenger car tire market grew by 16% (compared to 2022) and amounted to 45.7 million tires. According to the forecasts of the operator of the “Honest Sign” labeling system, CRPT, by the end of this year, we can expect an increase in the tire market by approximately 10%.