Continental joins hands with Kase to empower repair shop channels and promote digital transformation of the automotive aftermarket

On January 8, 2025, Continental, a world-leading tire manufacturer, and Kase, an automotive aftermarket industrial Internet company, held a signing ceremony for in-depth strategic cooperation in Shenzhen under the theme of "Riding Thousands of Miles and Linking the Future", and announced that the two parties will continue to deepen strategic cooperation, drive digital supply chain upgrades, empower repair shop channels, and further enhance consumers' tire purchase and use experience.

1 Insight into new energy market trends and create a transparent and visual supply chain
In the context of the new energy era, repair shop channels are facing the dilemma of shrinking traditional business, and tires, as a new business opportunity, have the characteristics of complex specifications, large volume, and high logistics costs. The traditional supply chain model cannot meet the demand, resulting in repair shops facing a series of challenges in products, profits, distribution, and after-sales when expanding tire business.

In order to solve the many problems faced by the repair shop channel, Continental joins hands with Kase to launch an overall solution for the repair shop tire business to jointly empower the digital transformation and upgrading of the automotive aftermarket. As a leading digital infrastructure builder in the industry, Kaisi has built a digital, visual, controllable and efficient full-area quick-matching infrastructure for upstream manufacturers. Continental has integrated its quick-matching system and extended warranty services with Kaisi's digital system, and provided quick-matching services through Continental CDMS's fully automatic order processing and nearly 200 forward warehouses of dealers across the country, making the supply chain transparent and visible. With the "complete, fast, good and economical" tire business solution, it helps repair shops quickly respond to consumers' temporary tire purchase needs.

Tang Mingyou, General Manager of Continental Tire (China) Co., Ltd., said: "Continental has always been committed to customer-centricity. The strategic cooperation between Continental and Kaisi is based on the new needs of the current Chinese auto aftermarket and repair shop channels. Together, we will create an overall solution for the tire business, build a new auto aftermarket ecosystem through digital empowerment, socialized inventory, and value chain sorting, and provide Chinese car owners with a more convenient, fast, and high-quality consumer experience."

2 Digital drive, greatly improving user experience
Thanks to the joint efforts of both parties in digital system integration and providing comprehensive solutions, the cooperation between Continental and Kaisi in 2024 has achieved remarkable results. It has received nearly 50 million inquiries from 10,000 repair shops and met the temporary tire replacement needs of more than 40,000 car owners. The average time for quick matching is only 36.7 minutes. In addition, when repair shops place orders for Continental tires on the Kaisi platform, they can quickly and clearly understand product information, order inventory status and delivery time, and can obtain retail price references from official e-commerce flagship stores. Information acquisition is fast, transparent, and visual. At the same time, consumers can get genuine Continental products, as well as full life cycle warranty and extended warranty value-added services.

Jiang Yongxing, founder and CEO of Kaisi, said: "Kaisi has always focused on building a reliable, easy-to-use and efficient digital infrastructure, and working with high-quality partners to improve the accessories purchasing experience. Continental is renowned worldwide for its exquisite craftsmanship and excellent quality, and Kaisi complements it with its digital intelligence capabilities and widely covered store network. Through this in-depth cooperation, the two parties have created a perfect "new blueprint" and will jointly provide repair shops with smarter tire procurement solutions to help them easily cope with market changes and bring car owners a better consumer experience."

3 Start strategic cooperation to create a new ecosystem for auto aftermarket
Continental and Kaisi plan to provide high-quality service experience to 100,000 repair shops within three years, and provide joint certification new intelligent chain services to 10,000 repair shops. Through digital empowerment, socialized inventory, and value chain sorting, help repair shops and stores to be more standardized and visualized in the sales and after-sales service of tire products, and further enhance their competitive advantages.

Looking ahead, Continental and CTCI will continue to deepen their presence in the automotive aftermarket, jointly drive the digital supply chain revolution, and provide more Chinese car owners with high-quality tire products and service experiences.