Despite enough efforts by the manufacturers to promote the use and sales of the tubeless tyres, the product appeared to have failed to impress buyers.
The market though may pick up in a few years the sale of tubeless tyres at present bares a gloomy look.
"The infrastructure development and the road conditions have not kept pace with the technology development. The sales of tubeless tyres is restricted to the higher segment premium cars and still not many here are aware about the benefits of tubeless tyres," said the regional service manager of JK Tyre.
The cost of the tubeless tyres is believed to be a little higher and the sales of tubeless tyres are believed to comprise around 10 per cent of the total tyre sales.
When the tubeless tyre market is doing exceptionally well, the companies here are believed to have been making high end efforts to promote the use of same. Alloy rims seem to be essential for the use of tubeless tyre resulting in to better performance.
The tubeless tyre concept does not seem to have caught up here as the tubeless tyre industry here was in a nascent stage.
The entry segment car owners are not opting for tubeless tyres but most of the luxury segment car owners preferred to buy them.
Though it is true that despite the special benefits that the product has not enough people are aware about it and they are also afraid about the repair works in tubeless tyre.
"There are not enough repairers available when there are problems in the tyre," an MRF official admitted.
The manufacturers were expecting sales as well as the awareness to increase in next two to three years.
While mending regular tyres after a puncture on highway was difficult, tubeless tyres were believed to be safer as they did not require immediate repair.
The market of tubeless was not all that large even today, said sources.
However, demand was growing and was expected to pick up still more. Rajkumar Raghuvanshi of Goodyear remarked, "The awareness about tubeless tyre is increasing and a higher number of people are opting for it."
Goodyear was conducting awareness programmes and also providing free repair kits to the repairers. He claimed tubeless tyres were the safest and the best for long journeys.
Goodyear produced 75000 tubeless tyres per month in India and was planning to promote sales.
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