Inside Sailun's Manufacturing Overhaul: Building Smarter Factories Across Five Continents

A Global Manufacturing Network in Constant Motion

Few tire manufacturers are expanding and upgrading their production infrastructure as aggressively as Sailun Group right now. Across Egypt, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico, and potentially South Africa, the company is simultaneously building new capacity and modernizing existing plants with smarter, more advanced technology — a coordinated global push that reflects both surging demand for its products and a long-term strategy to compete with the world's most established tire manufacturers on manufacturing sophistication, not just price.

Sailun currently operates four global R&D centers and nine production bases, with three additional production bases under construction, selling products in more than 180 countries. What follows is a look at how the company is upgrading manufacturing technology and capacity across its key production hubs.

Egypt: A Rapidly Escalating Investment

Egypt has emerged as one of the most active fronts in Sailun's global manufacturing expansion — and the scale of investment has grown dramatically in a short period. Sailun broke ground on its Egyptian plant, developed by wholly owned subsidiary Shams El Sherouk Tire Co., in September 2025, with an initial phase targeting annual capacity for 3 million semi-steel and 600,000 all-steel radial tires.

Rather than waiting for that first phase to be completed, Sailun moved quickly to announce a substantial second-phase expansion:

The Phase 2 expansion is being built at Ataqa, Suez province, within the TEDA industrial zone of the Suez Canal Economic Zone, with construction expected to take around 18 months. Sailun has said the investment will strengthen its ability to capture overseas market opportunities and meet continuously growing global demand — positioning Egypt not just as a regional manufacturing base, but as a strategic export hub benefiting from the Suez Canal Economic Zone's international trade access.

For Egypt's automotive and tire distribution sector, this scale of investment signals long-term commitment rather than a short-term production arrangement — a meaningful development for local distributors and service providers connected to the Sailun supply chain.

Vietnam: Upgrading a Flagship Overseas Plant

Vietnam holds particular significance in Sailun's manufacturing story as the company's first overseas manufacturing plant and its first step in its internationalization strategy. Located in Tay Ninh province, the facility has recently become the focus of a fresh wave of technology investment.

Following high-level discussions between Sailun executives — including Group chair Jane Liu and company president Xie Xiaohong — and senior Tay Ninh provincial officials, Sailun confirmed plans to upgrade the plant's technology and equipment, with the explicit goal of building a smarter, more advanced, and more eco-friendly factory. The company said it would draw on the technical resources of the National Engineering Research Center for Rubber and Tire (NERCRAT) to accelerate the adoption of new equipment and technologies at the site, describing its ambition as building "a new model of an advanced global tire manufacturing facility."

This upgrade matters because Tay Ninh isn't simply one plant among many — it functions as a proof-of-concept site for how Sailun approaches overseas manufacturing more broadly, making its modernization a signal of the technology standards the company intends to apply across its wider international footprint.

Indonesia: A New Regional Hub Comes Online

Sailun's most recently completed major facility is its integrated manufacturing base in Demak, Central Java, Indonesia — a US$251.44 million (roughly €230 million) investment that officially opened in January 2026, operated by local subsidiary PT Sailun Manufacturing. The plant has capacity for 3 million passenger car radial tires, 600,000 truck and bus radial tires, and 37,000 tones of off-highway tire products.

Sailun described the Indonesian facility's "mature manufacturing system and local supply chain capabilities" as enabling a more comprehensive supply of tire products, while significantly improving delivery efficiency and service response levels across the regional market. The company positioned the plant as new momentum for its competitiveness in the broader Asian overseas market.

Notably, less than a year after producing its first tire, Sailun had already moved to expand output volumes and broaden the product mix at the Indonesian site — a pattern that mirrors the rapid Phase 1-to-Phase 2 escalation seen in Egypt, and one that suggests Sailun is deliberately building initial capacity with room to scale quickly once demand and operational performance are validated.

Mexico: Establishing a North American Foothold

To serve the North American market directly, Sailun's Singapore subsidiary entered into a joint venture agreement with TD International Holding to build a US$240 million manufacturing plant in Mexico — the company's first North American production site. The facility is planned for an annual production capacity of 6 million semi-steel radial tires, with potential expansion to add 1.65 million all-steel radial tires.

According to Sailun Tire's President for North America, Peter Koszo, the expansion will not only help meet rising regional demand but will also allow the company to design, test, and manufacture products specifically for the North American market, from within North America itself — a strategic shift from exporting into the region toward building genuine local manufacturing and product-development capability.

South Africa: A Possible Second African Base

Sailun's manufacturing ambitions in Africa may not stop with Egypt. The company has been evaluating South Africa's Coega Special Economic Zone as a potential location for what could become its second tire factory on the continent, alongside a proposed tire recycling facility. Discussions have included South African officials and the Coega Development Corporation, with the Coega SEZ already home to established vehicle manufacturers, including FAW.

While still at an evaluation stage, the move signals Sailun's intent to build a genuinely continent-wide manufacturing and recycling footprint in Africa, rather than relying on a single production base to serve the entire region.

The Strategic Logic Behind Simultaneous Expansion

Sailun's willingness to invest heavily across multiple continents at the same time reflects a deliberate, coordinated manufacturing strategy rather than opportunistic, one-off decisions:

• Regional proximity to demand – Building plants closer to key markets (Egypt for the Middle East, Africa, and Europe; Mexico for North America; Indonesia for Southeast Asia) reduces shipping costs, import tariffs, and delivery times.
• Technology consistency across sites – The Vietnam upgrade in particular shows Sailun applying its most advanced manufacturing standards — smart, eco-friendly, AI-integrated production — not just at its newest plants, but retrofitted into its earliest overseas facility, ensuring consistency across the network rather than a two-tier system of "flagship" and "legacy" plants.
• Rapid capacity escalation once validated – Both Egypt and Indonesia show a clear pattern: build an initial phase, validate operational performance, then move quickly to expand — a lower-risk approach to scaling that avoids overcommitting capital before a site proves itself.
• Supply chain resilience – A geographically diversified manufacturing base reduces Sailun's exposure to disruption at any single facility, region, or trade route.

What This Means for the Global Tire Market

Sailun's manufacturing expansion arrives alongside its other recent milestones — rapid brand value growth, an upgraded MSCI ESG rating, OE partnerships with automakers like BYD, and a growing motorsport and sports sponsorship portfolio. Taken together, these developments suggest a company building capacity not just to grow revenue, but to genuinely compete with the world's largest tyre manufacturers on manufacturing scale, technological sophistication, and global market access simultaneously.

For markets like Egypt, where Sailun's expansion has been especially aggressive, this points toward a strengthening, long-term supply relationship — one backed by billions of dollars in committed manufacturing investment rather than a short-term import arrangement.

Looking Ahead

With active projects spanning Egypt, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mexico, and a potential new site under evaluation in South Africa, Sailun's manufacturing technology strategy shows little sign of slowing down. As each new or upgraded facility comes online, the company appears set to keep pushing toward its stated ambition of building some of the world's most advanced tire manufacturing infrastructure — combining smart, AI-enabled production with an increasingly global, and increasingly resilient, manufacturing footprint.