Ceat uses CAMSO deal to drive global off-highway tyre expansion

CEAT is trying to use CAMSO as a shortcut out of its India-centric past and into a more profitable global niche. The payoff so far is visible in the numbers: off-highway tyres now contribute about 20% of CEAT’s revenue, up from 12% to 14% before the acquisition, a sharp shift for a company long tied to mainstream passenger and motorcycle tyres.

The move began on December 6, 2024, when CEAT announced an all-cash deal worth about $225 million to buy Michelin’s CAMSO off-highway construction equipment bias tyre and tracks business. The transaction covered a business that generated around $213 million in revenue in calendar 2023, along with global ownership of the CAMSO brand and two manufacturing facilities in Sri Lanka. CEAT completed the acquisition on September 3, 2025, adding the Midigama plant and the Casting Product plant in Kotugoda to its specialty portfolio.

The strategic logic is clear. CEAT has said the combined platform gives it access to more than 40 global original equipment manufacturers and premium international off-highway distributors, a customer base that matters far more in specialty tyres than in mass-market rubber. Management has also described the business as potentially margin-accretive over time, with a high-teen to 20% operating margin potential once integration stabilizes. That is the real prize: a category with stronger pricing power, deeper technical requirements and longer-term customer relationships than the company’s core tyre lines.

CAMSO already carries outsized weight inside the portfolio. CEAT says the brand represents around 40% of its off-highway tyre revenue, underlining how central it is to the company’s next phase of growth. Amit Tolani, chief executive of CEAT Specialty, has said the category is expected to become increasingly dominant and that CAMSO gives CEAT access to products it was not serving before. A September 2025 update added that CAMSO widens the product base into construction tyres and tracks.

The bigger test comes later. CEAT expects access to the full CAMSO portfolio from 2028, including agricultural tracks, harvester tracks, power-sports tracks and material-handling equipment categories. That creates a multi-year expansion runway, but it also means the deal is only partly delivering today. CEAT is betting that developed markets, especially North America and Europe, will supply the next leg of incremental growth. If the integration works, the company could build a durable specialty franchise. If it stumbles, the Sri Lankan plants, the licensing transition and the wider product roll-out could add complexity before they add scale.