Hankook Tire and Technology Co., the world's seventh-largest tiremaker by sales, said Tuesday it started supplying tires for the Mercedes-AMG GT Coupe model early this year. Hankook Tire has provided the high-performance Ventus S1 evo Z product for the Mercedes-Benz's sports car model in the form of original equipment (OE) products, the company said in a statement. It is the first time for the Korean tiremaker to supply OE tires to the German carmaker's sports car brand Mercedes-AMG's model, it said. To enhance its global brand image, Hankook Tire has provided its OE tire products for use in 320 kinds of vehicles of 50 foreign carmakers, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. Supplying OE tires to car manufacturers does not generate much revenue for tiremakers but securing big companies as clients helps improve their brand image and can lead to boosting brand awareness and a rise in product prices down the line. For tiremakers, it is more profitable to sell replacement equipment (RE) tires in the after-sales market. Hankook Tire earned 87 percent of its total revenue from abroad last year. It has eight plants -- two in South Korea, one in Hungary, one in the United States, three in China and one in Indonesia -- whose combined capacity reaches 100 million tires per year. Source: Yonhap News Agency