Hankook Tire, South Korea’s largest tire manufacturer by sales, said Thursday it will ramp up research in the original equipment tire sector.

OE tires refer to tires that are equipped with new vehicles coming fresh off production lines. When designing new vehicle models, automakers go through several steps with tire manufacturers to choose or develop tires that best complement their own vehicle models.

Hankook Tire is currently offering OE tires and replacement tires for around 320 car models worldwide, including those of German carmakers like Mercedes Benz, BMW and Audi, as well as Porsche’s SUV models.

Hankook Tire said that it will invest more resources in research and development to maintain the award-winning design quality and functional aspects of their tire models.

Hankook Tire’s all-terrain tire model Dynapro AT2 was recently named at the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2020, one of the world’s top three design awards, along with iF Design Awards and IDEA Design Awards.

The Korean tire manufacturer has won a series of awards from the Red Dot Award. In 2019, the company’s flagship tire, Ventus S1 evo 3 was named at the Red Dot Award: Product Design 2019. Its stud-less winter tire model, I FIT, and Dyna SYNC were recognized at the Red Dot Award in 2017 and 2016, respectively.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)