| North America | Africa | Europe | Asia-Pacific | Industry | 0,336 | 0,055 | 0,265 | 0,344 | Apollo tyres sales | 0 | 0,135 | 0,245 | 0,62 | Cumulated sales | 0 | 0,135 | 0,38 | 1 | Cumulated sales- sales | 0 | 0 | 0,135 | 0,38 | Cumulated sales+(Cumulated sales-sales) | 0 | 0,135 | 0,515 | 1,38 | Industry[Cumulated sales+(Cumulated sales-sales)] | 0 | 0,74 | 13,75 | 47,47 | | | | | | | | | GIR | 61,96 |
The International Strategy of Apollo Tyres.
International position:

The international position of Apollo Tyres seems to be one of Regional Dominant Player. Below is the table of calculations of the Global Revenue Index (GRI). According to these calculations, the GRI in this case is of 61,96, which means that Apollo Tyres is a Regional Dominant Player.
This result is coherent with the characteristics of Apollo Tyres, because it is dominant in India. The company wants and is maintaining both a world-class brand (Dunlop) and a local low-cost brand (Regal Tyres). Its dominance in the Indian market (62% of sales in the Asia-Pacific region) is focused on the low-price demand in India. In its international strategy, Apollo Tyres goes beyond solely exporting to other markets, but has also established other facilities and acquired other companies in its international expansion. However, the vast majority of its sales are in the Asia-Pacific reason, particularly in India. Therefore, we can conclude with the calculations and the statistical data that Apollo Tyres is a Regional Dominant Player in the Asia-Pacific region.
International expansion vectors:
Apollo Tyres is located between the export strategy and the Global strategy vectors. Indeed, they have several brands, however, they do not have enough variety of brands to place it in the adaptation vector. There are companies in different sectors that have hundreds of different brands at the global level, and this is not the case of Apollo Tyres. The company also has a world-class brand that it sells globally, rather than different varieties adapted to different cultures. The fact that its objective is to maintain a world-class brand and that it does not have an immense variety of tyres further confirms that it is located between the export and global strategies.
It is located between the export and global strategy vectors because they have not developed their product range enough yet, on the other hand, they are established in several countries.
Entry mode:
The main driving forces that determine the international entry mode of Apollo Tyres are time-to-market and transaction costs. Apollo Tyres managed to follow a combination of internal and external growth, mostly the latter. The acquisitions have contributed highly to sales growth, especially the acquisitions of Dunlop Tyres in South Africa and of Vredestein in the Netherlands. Sales growth between 2005 and 2007 has been from 358 to 743 million euros, and this significant increase in sales shows how important the acquisition strategy has been for Apollo Tyres.
The strategy of Mergers and Aquitisions are good strategies of rapid growth when there are good opportunities. Apollo Tyres used the strategy of acquiring Amtel when it was going bankrupted and wanted to selloff quickly some assets. This was a perfect timing for an acquisition strategy since it was an opportunity that came up when Apollo Tyres was negotiating to invest to set up a manufacturing facility in Hungary.
As for the internal growth, Apollo established a marketing and R&D center in Brussels and Gurgaon, respectively, in order to coordinate and achieve synergies between th Dutch, South African and Indian centers. This way, Apollo could take advantage of lower transaction costs as well as maintain its own autonomy within each region.
Overall, it seems that the strategy of acquisitions has been the preferable strategy of Apollo Tyres, hence its fast international development.