Watts Tyre Group have announced that they are launching two new products into the market over the forthcoming months, the Premia Press On Band and the Sherpa Industrial Pneumatic.

The Premia POB, which was unveiled at CeMAT in Hannover this year, represents a new generation of POB tyres designed with high performance applications in mind. Its contoured design has been engineered to produce low stress points at the band/rubber interface to give outstanding rubber to steel bond characteristics. Available in Traction and Smooth tread patterns, the Premia POB is also produced in Non Marking and Electrically Conducting compounds.

In the final quarter of 2008 Watts will be launching the Sherpa, a high quality Industrial Pneumatic designed to meet the most demanding of requirements. Initial field tests have shown that Sherpa outperforms other industrial pneumatics in its class, results that are supported by independent tests which show that it lasts longer under a variety of different conditions than a number of the industry's market leading products.

Chief Executive Jean-Paul Mindermann commented "As a tyre group we have to respond to the needs of the market. We have worked closely with both OEM's and dealers to understand what products they require and why they need them, this process has allowed us to develop products exactly in accord with those demands."

"As we continue to experience high raw material costs we have to work ever closer with OEM's and dealers to ensure that the right product mix is available to them, and that each product demonstrates clear value in its proposition. We also have to ensure that tyres are correctly specified according to use, load and environment as this is often where end users get seduced by price rather than value."