DRIVING PROGRESS, TOGETHER.

Dear Member,

I hope that you and your family members are safe and following all precautions and safety guidelines in these days of crisis. We have been a witness to an extremely challenging and difficult FY21. The COVID-19 pandemic raged across the world and the ensuing challenges had to be faced by individuals, communities, organisations and countries.

In India, the fiscal began with a lockdown resulting in a never before situation for all of us. The main fallout of the lockdown (and the first quarter of the fiscal) was the plummeting demand for products and services. It was an extremely tough quarter for us as well, something that we have not faced in a long, long time. And for the first time in over two decades, we reported a quarterly loss of ₹ 135 crore (Euro 16.1 million) with both our Indian and European operations reporting losses for the quarter.

I have always maintained that we have tried to build a culture at Apollo Tyres where we see challenging times as opportunities. Like the theme of the annual report, each one of us at Apollo Tyres truly believes that ‘No challenge too tough’. As difficulties forced all their might on us, we endured and overcome them, and leapt forward living our DNA of ‘go the distance’.

At times, adversities bring the best in us and it was delightful to see Apolloites living the value of ‘One Family’ during the adversity. As your trustee of the value system in the company, I saw the spirit of empathy and the sense of togetherness as individuals and teams reached out to people inside and outside the organisation to help and support them during the pandemic.

During such difficult times, we ensured constant communication with the employees and shared the challenges of living in a year of COVID-19. This helped us to continue our relentless focus on cost reduction and enhancing manufacturing efficiencies across the organisation. It is my firm believe that we need to drive unnecessary cost out of our business, as that is the delta between a profitable and a losing organisation in this increasingly global industry. This helped us end the fiscal on a very healthy note with robust revenue growth across market segments and geographies.

During the year of the pandemic, we left no stone unturned to ensure that we live by one of our core values – One Family. Our teams across the regions extended themselves to distribute food and other resources to people across the country. Further, the best way of beating the virus was ensuring the right information of COVID-19 across various communities and we reached out to over a million people creating awareness and safety guidelines. We also joined the ‘Jan Andolan’ for Tuberculosis (TB) free India to contribute to India’s National TB Elimination Programme to meet the ambitious goal of eradication of TB from India by 2025.

We are not out of the grim situation as the second wave has been causing massive disruption at personal and professional fronts. Yet we remain confident!

We have launched the Vision 2025 – ‘Driving Progress, Together’ – along with a new purpose and values to enable us to continue surging ahead, despite the challenges and adversities. I am confident that Team Apollo will continue to be firmly guided by its vision, purpose and values to take the company to new heights.

I would like to acknowledge every single employee, network partner and business partner for having stood by Apollo Tyres in these challenging times, and actively contributed to this success. I would like to thank each one of you, our valuable shareholders, for having been with us in this exciting journey. The support that we continue to receive from our banks, financial institutions and the various State and National Governments where we operate, enable us to excel and we remain grateful as ever.

We at Apollo Tyres remain committed and sincere in our efforts to keep delivering ever better value to you, our shareholders. I look forward to having many more exciting updates for you in the new year.

Stay safe!

Onkar Kanwar

Chairman & Managing Director

Dear Member,

I sincerely hope that each one of you and your family members are safe, practising all safety protocols and continuing to adhere to all government guidelines.

‘No challenge too tough’ is the theme for the fiscal’s annual report. It was a fiscal of the covid pandemic which disrupted and challenged everything that we knew as normal.

As a global company, we faced various challenges and had to navigate multiple scenarios as the situation was different in each country and kept changing fast. We could not have a consistency of approach and had to learn quickly to live with the added complexity. And yet as the pandemic raged on, we forged a path through in these uncertain times. We pushed the envelope and went the distance with a firm belief that no challenge is so tough that it cannot be overcome or converted into an opportunity to ensure that we are on our profitable and sustainable growth journey. FY21 was business as usual!

Given the pandemic, our first and foremost concern was the safety of our employees across the globe. We ensured covid appropriate behaviour was strictly adhered to in all our offices and plants and urged people to follow it when at home. Within a short time, we created an entire eco-system to ensure that our employees could work from their homes and yet continue business as usual.

While business was unusual, life at Apollo Tyres remained as usual - fast paced. To take on the pandemic, we launched an internal global initiative – DRIVE (Discover new sales opportunities, Re-engineer Apollo, Inventory and production optimisation, Value of cash and Eliminate cost) and this helped us to not only to ease the pain of the pandemic but be ready when the lockdowns were lifted and post a healthy overall growth for the fiscal.

Digitalisation played a key role in the DRIVE journey. We added it to our focus on people, brands and product technology, as we ramped up our investment significantly in this area.

A strategy based on these focus areas helped us to commission our 7th manufacturing unit globally, and the 5th in India, in Andhra Pradesh. We also inaugurated our two-wheeler radial tyre facility in Gujarat as we set our eyes on building a leadership position in highly profitable premium two-wheeler market.

The fiscal saw the virtual launch of the new Vredestein Wintrac and the new Vredestein visual identity. This will allow us to position Vredestein as even more premium brand and take our marketing activities to the next level. We launched the Vredestein brand and its specially designed best-in-class product portfolio for the North American market.

And the year ended with the introduction of the Apterra Cross tyres for the Indian. These are dedicated range of tyres for the fast growing compact SUV segment in India and a first in the industry.

As I look back, I see the year has indeed passed by quickly, despite the uncertainty all around us. I don’t see uncertainty changing given the second wave of the virus hitting many countries even as it hit India hard. FY22 will not be an easy year and we have our work cut out to post profitable and sustainable growth.

And we continue to plan ahead. We have launched our vision for 2025 – ‘Driving Progress, Together’ – along with a new purpose – ‘Enabling Excellence’. These will be part of the new corporate identity which you have seen in the pages of the annual report.

I am confident that we will continue to be unstoppable in our pursuit to achieve the vision as I and every colleague at Apollo Tyres firmly believe in the power of the theme of the annual report and this gives us confidence in our ability to overcome any challenge.

I sincerely thank the support of every single member of the Apollo One Family including our employees, our network and business partners and our shareholders. I will continue to update you on a periodic basis and I do look forward to being in touch with you.

In conclusion I urge you to follow all safety protocols and stay safe!

With best regards,

Neeraj Kanwar

Vice Chairman & Managing Director

The Company remains the preferred partner for global and Indian original equipment auto players, catering to more than 100 countries worldwide. With its corporate headquarter in Gurgaon, Apollo Tyres has multiple manufacturing units in India, the Netherlands and Hungary.

The extensive operations, backed by a global workforce of approximately 19,000 employees, deliver a turnover of US$ 2.34 Bn. The Company markets its products under two international brands – Apollo and Vredestein – that are available across the world through a vast network of branded, exclusive and multi-product outlets.

Vision

Driving progress, together.