Amerityre recently released its FY2017 earning report. I am pleased to report that for the first time in its 22 year history, Amerityre reported an annual profit. Since taking over as CEO two years ago, my main goal has been to restructure Amerityre to allow it to become a profitable business. By examining all of our processes with a critical eye to reduce costs and building our closed cell foam business revenue, we were able to overcome significant headwinds in our agricultural tire business and reach profitability over an entire year. I am very proud of our employees who were able to make the necessary adjustments and devote themselves to achieve this important milestone. Full results can be found posted on our website or at www.sec.gov.
Recent news has focused on how our government trade policies may change in the coming months, along with an emphasis on buying American-made products. On its face one would think that this would be good news for Amerityre, as its major flat-free tire competitors produce their tires overseas and import them into the United States. However, if there is one thing I have learned over the years, it is that nothing is what it appears to be, especially when government policy is involved. The focus on “Buy American” has prompted several potential customers to inquire about our products. These companies were buying imported flat free tires and were considering changing over to our American-made tires. We received samples of their current tires and conducted performance testing against our tires. Our tires, not surprisingly, were markedly superior to the competition in performance testing. However, when our price quotations were evaluated, we were told that our pricing was higher than the competition and that we would not be getting this new business. During our conversation, the value of having an American-made tire came up, and I was disappointed to hear that “everybody says they want American made products but nobody wants to pay for it.”
I have been thinking about that statement often – is this true? It is evident that over the past 20 years or so that pricing for manufactured goods has dramatically decreased, turning Americans into a “throw away” society that finds it less expensive to replace a broken appliance or other item rather than have it repaired. Perhaps this is the reason there are so few manufacturers residing in the United States today – the majority of the market will gravitate towards a low price alternative, even if it means accepting a lower level of quality. For those of you who do feel supporting American made products are important, I invite you to visit one of our distributors listed on our website or order directly from Amerityre using the website if a local distributor is not available. All of our tires are produced in Boulder City, Nevada.
I have been asked many times if Amerityre “could produce a cheaper tire by making a lower quality product”. If we used the inferior materials found in some flat free tires, I am sure we could get the cost and sales price lower. However, this approach would conflict with our mission, to provide the marketplace with the best VALUE in flat free tires. When we talk about value it is much more than lowest price; we also take into account performance, durability and the duration of time a particular tire will operate at peak performance. I have no issues standing behind my opinion that Amerityre produces the best flat free tire in the marketplace, and we have many satisfied customers that will back up my statement. I can say with fair certainty that Amerityre will never be the lowest priced tire in the marketplace, but we will provide a tire that performs consistently better and longer than the competition, lowering the total cost of ownership and providing the best value. That is not to say that we are not looking to develop new products and formulations that will lower the costs of our finished tires, but we will not sacrifice our reputation for quality and performance to produce a cheaper tire. I firmly believe that educated consumers, after weighing factors such as price, quality, and performance, will choose an Amerityre product because it provides the best overall value.
I will end this posting with a short story about an email we received today. A customer, named Stephen Fugate, contacted us to order replacement bike tires he was using for a pushcart. He told us that he wore out the tires he purchased several years ago by completing walking trips across the United States. According to his calculations, our tires covered 10,490 miles before needing replacement. If I ever doubted the reasons to produce a quality tire, it is a story like this one that shows me that Amerityre has the proper focus on quality and performance.. If you would like to learn more about Stephen and his amazing story you can visit his website at http://www.lovelifewalk.com/book.html. While I cannot say that Stephen’s results are typical, I do have the confidence in our products to say that such results are not truly surprising to me. I invite you to buy Amerityre products for your application and experience the Amerityre difference for yourself.