26 / 88
Tires
GB Auto has been among Egypt’s leading
tire distributors for more than 50 years.
The company distributes passenger car,
van, light truck, truck, bus, agriculture
and off-the-road tires from manufac-
turers including Turkey’s Lassa, Japan’s
Yokohama, China’s Westlake, Triangle,
Diamondback, Double Coin, Grand-
stone, Jumbo and Goodyear.
This business unit also has an es-
tablished regional presence, with
operations covering Iraq, Algeria and
Jordan, while GB Auto has adopted a
wait-and-see approach to Libya. Efforts
are ongoing to round out the company’s
product offering, with more important
representations to come on stream
soon.
The Tires business unit is an increas-
ingly important contributor to GB
Auto’s revenue and profitability stream,
through both increased sales volume
and sustained foreign currency sales in
an environment of devaluation in the
company’s home market of Egypt.
2014 Business Review
• The Tires line of business reported
an increase in both revenues and
gross profit on a full-year basis,
with regional sales climbing 86.5%
in FY14 when compared to the pre-
vious year. Domestically, sales rev-
enues and gross profits were also up
in the fourth quarter, a further sign
that the over-supply in the Egyptian
market continues to correct itself.
• GB Auto has soft launched sales of
Goodyear and expects to officially
launch sales in mid-2015, marking
the ramp-up of tires sales in Algeria.
• Construction will begin in 2015 on
a new tires manufacturing facil-
ity. The tires plant will permit GB
Auto to lock-in supplies of products
appropriate to its markets while
simultaneously catering to strong
local demand in North and East
Africa and the GCC, where c.99% of
tires sold are imported. The plant
will also give GB Auto access to a
sufficient quantity of light truck
tires, the absence of which (as a
result of supplier constraints) has
been a persistent obstacle to the
division’s growth.
Tires Revenues by Year
(LE million)
“GB Auto has agreements with a number of Original
Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to distribute
a wide variety of tires in five countries.“
2010 2011 2012 2013
2014
290.1
390.4
415.2
163.4
111.7
Ghabbour Auto | 2014 ANNUAL REPORT
24