Hankook Tire & Technology Co., the world's seventh-largest tiremaker by sales, said Monday it has been supplying tires for Chinese EV company NIO's models since last year.

Hankook Tire has provided the high-performance Ventus S1 evo 2 tires for NIO's ES6 and EC6 SUV models since 2020, the company said in a statement.

The company didn't provide an exact time frame for the supply deal or the value of the deal.

Hankook Tire has supplied original equipment (OE) tires to Audi models, such as the A3 and A4 sedan, and the Q3, Q5, Q7, SQ7, Q8 and SQ8 SUVs in the past decade.

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 after-sales markets.

To enhance its global brand image, the tiremaker has provided its products to 320 kinds of vehicles of nearly 50 foreign carmakers, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.

For the whole of 2020, its net profit fell 10 percent to 385.2 billion won from 429.6 billion won a year earlier amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hankook Tire earns over 80 percent of its total revenue from abroad.

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 102 million tires. (Yonhap)