Apollo Tyres Ltd Q2 FY26 – Inflation, Innovation, and Inflation Again: How Apollo Is Rolling Through Every Pothole Like a Boss (and Sometimes a Bald Tyre)
1. At a Glance
Apollo Tyres Ltd – India’s OG tyre monarch from Kochi – just keeps rolling, literally and financially. As of 20 November 2025, the company’s stock sits at ₹519 per share with a market cap of ₹33,038 crore. It’s up about 11.5% over the last 3 months, doing better than most mutual funds and most gym resolutions.
The company’s Q2 FY26 (September 2025) results show sales of ₹6,831 crore (up 6.1% YoY), and a PAT of ₹378 crore, up 25.6% YoY. Not bad for a business that literally burns rubber for a living. With an EPS of ₹4.06, Apollo trades at a P/E of ~25x, which is slightly below MRF’s luxury P/E but way higher than your car’s tyre pressure.
Its ROE of 8.6% and ROCE of 11.4% aren’t exactly Michelin-star material, but steady enough for a company that just spent ₹500 crore on capex in 9 months. The debt-to-equity ratio at 0.29x reflects a much healthier balance sheet after cutting consolidated debt from ₹5,600 crore in FY23 to ₹3,500 crore by 9M FY25.
And if you were wondering — yes, the CCI penalty drama from 2022 still occasionally resurfaces, because Indian regulatory cases last longer than Apollo’s 7-year tyre warranty.
2. Introduction
Once upon a time in 1972, when bell-bottoms ruled India, Apollo Tyres began as a small Kochi-based company making bias tyres. Today, it’s a ₹26,743 crore revenue behemoth that sells tyres from Delhi’s rickshaws to Europe’s BMWs.
Apollo’s product catalogue reads like a car showroom brochure on steroids – truck & bus radials (TBR), passenger car radials (PCR), light truck tyres, farm tyres, and even industrial and off-highway tyres. If it rolls, Apollo probably sells to it.
What’s wild is that 81% of sales now come from the replacement market, because apparently Indians replace tyres faster than they replace governments. Only 19% comes from OEMs, which shows Apollo is more loved by service centers than by Maruti Suzuki’s purchase department.
The European business, once the problem child, now contributes 30% to revenue, thanks to the Vredestein brand, which is as fancy as it sounds and much more expensive than your local puncture shop’s offerings.
But Europe’s not all fun and Autobahns — Apollo recently announced plans to discontinue its Netherlands plant by summer 2026 due to high costs. Translation: “We love Europe, but not its electricity bills.”
So, where’s Apollo headed? Let’s peel this rubber onion layer by layer.
3. Business Model – WTF Do They Even Do?
Apollo Tyres’ business is a simple two-word formula: Rubber + Revenue.
They manufacture and sell tyres and tubes for all kinds of vehicles — from trucks carrying onions to cars carrying heartbreaks. They cater to:
Truck & Bus Tyres (41% of 9M FY25 revenue) – The workhorses that keep India’s logistics alive. Apollo dominates this category with a 28–29% market share.
Passenger Car Tyres (39%) – The snazzy segment, including the Vredestein brand, aimed at Europe’s premium car market and India’s rising middle class.
Farm & Off-Highway Tyres (9%) – Because tractors also deserve good grip (and farmer memes deserve good traction).
Light Truck Tyres (6%) – For the mini-truck warriors that rule India’s narrow lanes.
Others (6%) – Industrial and specialty tyres, for everything from loaders to lunar missions (eventually).
Geographically, APMEA (Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa) brings in 67%, while Europe contributes 30%. A little 3% comes from “Others” — probably Mars, at this rate.
The company’s dual-brand strategy — Apollo for mass markets and Vredestein for premium Europe — helps it cover both budget and BMW buyers.
And with two R&D centers, 200+ patents, and 7,200 dealers in India alone, Apollo is basically the IIT of Indian tyre companies — always experimenting, sometimes exploding, but always innovating.
