Harley Davidson Manufacturing Plant soon to be in India

American Motorbike manufacturer, Harley Davidson, seems to be moving forward with its slogan, The road starts here, it never ends. Harley is planning to setup its first manufacturing plant in India. The American company has large and boosting plans for their market sales. The first model was launched in 2008 and since then it has been selling assembled bikes in India. But now, it plans to establish a local manufacturing plant with the aim of making its costly bikes easily available to the Indian consumers. It would not be that easy for Harley Davidson to settle well in the Indian market with the close competitors like BMW, Kawasaki, KTM and Hyosung. However, the company has reached to a figure of selling an average of 100 units per month in 2012 and around 716 units in the last 12 months period of its budget plan. The expensive bikes of Harley Davidson wouldn’t have much rivalry in India, but the entry level bikes might face some problems with the presence of cheaper superbikes such as the Hyosung GT250R, Kawasaki Ninja 250 and Honda CBR250R that have the similar price around Rs. 2.75 lakh.

Reports say that an official team from Harley Davidson has been scouting and hunting around for the right location of their manufacturing plant to be established in India. The luxurious bikes of Harley Davidson range starts from Rs. 5.60 lakh and goes high up to Rs. 35 lakh. According to an official, Indian market has shown dramatic growth in superbikes in the last few years. A CKD (completely knocked-down) assembly plant has already been installed by the company in Haryana in first half of 2011; the second country after Brazil outside the U.S.
Harley Davidson will surely increase its presence in the world’s second largest motorcycle market by setting up its manufacturing plant here. However, there are no further plans for a new plant but is completely focusing on the CKD operations in India as said by the marketing director of the company.