Honda targets the top slot of Indian bike market
Published On Dec 20, 2011 12:00 AM By Mansi Malhotrafor Honda Activa 5G
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November 2011 brought the best gift for Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI), with the company being able to sell a record two lakh units in this one single month. The record is the highest for the company ever since it came to India. HMSI has thus replaced TVS Motors at third place, the top two being Hero MotoCorp and Bajaj Auto. Now the bike giant is full set to win on HeroMotoCorp as well.
HMSI looks forward to enhance its outputs to four million bikes and scooters every year by 2014–15. They also are planning to open up two plants in Gujrat and Maharashtra to boost up the sales over the years. As per the Business Line, "According to industry grapevine, this is only the beginning of an aggressive journey for the company, which is determined to recover the top slot it ceded to the Hero group after the duo parted ways recently. Apparently, Honda is keen on setting up two more plants in the Western region (most probably Gujarat and Maharashtra) which will mirror the 1.2-million unit annual capacities of the other three units. If the script runs according to plan, it will have more than six million two-wheelers rolling out of its facilities by 2017."
Back in the early 1980s, Honda entered the Indian subcontinent market with Viz with Hero and Kinetic Motors. It faced almost nil competition at that time, though the entire scenario has changed immensely since then. It faces tough competition from Hero MotoCorp, the top of all, and Bajaj Auto, seconding the list. Hero MotoCorp is working real hard to stay on top. The plan of a fourth plant somewhere in the beauties of south India. This new plant could boost up the sale to a whooping one crore units! They also plan to explore into African and Latin American markets in the near future. The way the company is booming, the target of a foreign market is not far-fetched. Bajaj Auto, over a period over next few years, sets it target to double up the sales to 10 million units. However, Bajaj focuses on its export market too, and not just in India.
