Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator's Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of John Murphy.
John Murphy - BAS-ML
Good morning, guys. If we look at what appears to be some pretty extreme market share losses in the first half of this year, I mean, I'm just wondering if you could put some color around where those major losses are. Is it in the private label business where you're being crowded out by some other low-end tires? I just want to understand exactly what's going on there.
Roy V. Armes
More specifically, John, it's in the private-label wholesale channel, and that is a channel that the imports are leveraging or using to be able to come in and get distribution in the country. So that's the specific area.
Philip G. Weaver
The other part of that, John, is that with our exposure to light truck, as the light truck declined faster than the market, it appears that our market share loss is faster.
John Murphy - BAS-ML
Okay. And when you think about that though, I mean, as you close Albany and switch your remaining three plants, I mean, is that a part of the market that you need to regain that market share or is that just not great profitable business so you might not fight back there and might just take a lower volume, higher profit approach? I'm just trying to understand what'll happen in there as Albany closes.
Roy V. Armes
Yeah. A couple of things there, John. We are interested in making profit on the tires that we do well so we are balancing that volume and margin equation. Secondly, though, we did introduce a value-line product that is really going at and attacking more of that loss that we had not only in the private label but in our house brands as well, and we think we've got a very good value position that we can both make money on and also gain some of that volume back, but we have been selective over the last couple of years to make sure that we profitably grow.
John Murphy - BAS-ML
Okay. And then when we look at Albany closing and thinking about the capacity underutilization on your remaining plants, where is that right now, the capacity utilization in all of your plants? Where do you think that will go once Albany is closed? And as you're talking about the $70-$80 million in savings from the closure of Albany, does that also encompass potentially any operating leverage improvements in the other plants as cap utilization rate goes up?
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