MRF: Present in everyday life

MRF is a long-running sponsor of the MRF rally team, which has participated in, and won, numerous championships Image: Dibyangshu Sarkar / AFP

Madras Rubber Factory (MRF) traces its inception to 1946, when KM Mammen Mappillai, a science graduate of Madras Christian College, started off on his entrepreneurial journey. With limited financial means, he set up shop in a small shed in Tiruvottiyur, Madras (now Chennai), to make balloons. Mappillai and his wife Kunjamma worked at the factory, and he took the balloons out for sale. Over the next three years, they started making latex cast toys, gloves and contraceptives. 

It was in 1952 that they started making tread rubber and, at a time when the industry was monopolised by multinational companies, MRF captured 50 percent of the Indian market within a short span of four years, and became the industry leader. Mappillai’s vision and global ambition is evident from the fact that in 1960 he made a natural progression into making tyres, registered MRF as a private limited company, and started making tyres in partnership with Ohio-based Mansfield Tire & Rubber company. The following year, he took the company public. 

With its US partnership, MRF became the first tyre maker in India to export its products to the American market; it expanded its export base by opening an office in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1964. This was also when the company’s iconic logo—that of a muscleman holding up a tyre over his head—was born. The mastermind behind the logo, and the immensely successful marketing campaign that followed, was Philip Eapen—also a Madras Christian College alumnus—who joined the company in 1958. He was a firm believer in local R&D and homegrown technology. (After holding various positions in the company for over 66 years, he was appointed senior advisor in 2007, and passed away at the age of 86, on July 11.) It was MRF that started manufacturing nylon tyres for the first time in the Indian market in 1973. 

Over the decades, the company has grown into a ₹58,061.25 crore market cap enterprise (according to NSE), and manufactures tyres across all segments, including heavy and light commercial vehicles, passenger cars, two-wheelers, tractors, earth movers, motorsports and fighter aircraft. MRF is the first and only Indian supplier of tyres for the Sukhoi SU-30 fighter aircraft of the Indian Air force. It has multiple manufacturing plants in Tamil Nadu, along with units in Kerala, Goa, Telangana and Gujarat.

Despite its dominance in the tyre market, Mappillai continued his business of making toys, establishing Funskool India in 1987, in collaboration with US-based Hasbro. It has partnerships with international brands such as Lego (Denmark), Hornby (UK), Tomy Toys (Japanese) and LeapFrog (US) for making and marketing their toys in India.