Honda
Motorcycles and Scooters Inda (HMSI) has announced its fourth manufacturing
plant in Gujarat. The plant which HMSI to have set up by late 2015 will be the country’s
only plant that manufactures scooters exclusively.
HMSI says it
will invest Rs 1,100 crores on a 250 acre plot, approximately 80 km from
Ahmedabad city. This will be the fourth production facility for HMSI in the
country. The company plans to have an annual capacity of 1.2 million units.
Chief
Minister of Gujarat Anandiben Patel, Finance Minister Saurabh Patel and other
senior dignitaries from the Gujarat government were present at the foundation
stone laying ceremony of Honda’s latest plant.
Noriaki Abe, Chief
Operating Officer, Honda Motor Company Ltd.-Asia & Oceania Region and Yoshiyuki
Matsumoto, Managing Officer , Honda Motor Co. and President & CEO, Honda Motor India
Pvt. Ltd. were also present with Keita Muramatsu, President & CEO of HMSI.
Others included Harbhajan Singh Vice President of General & Corporate
Affairs, HMSI and Yadvinder S. Guleria, Vice President, Sales & Marketing,
HMSI.
Honda claims
that this capacity expansion will increase HMSI’s total annual production
capacity to 5.8 million units in order to serve customers more efficiently.
India is
already a priority market for Honda because it is the world’s biggest
two-wheeler market. Honda aims to sell 18.2 million two-wheelers worldwide in
the current financial year of 2014-15 and for the first time, India will
contribute almost 25pc to global Honda sales, said Noriaki Abe. He further
stated that the company has huge expectations from this project as this will be
its flagship and benchmark plant in India in terms of volume, safety, quality,
cost, etc.
Keita
Muramatsu said that the Indian automatic scooter market is growing at 2.5 times
the speed of overall 2wheeler industry growth. The company predicts that this
segment sale can go up to 35pc of overall two-wheeler sales in 5-10 year
horizon. Gujarat will an ideal home and a springboard to meet the customer
demand, he said.
With a
presence in more than 40 countries globally, Honda’s worldwide 2wheelersales
volume was 17 million units in FY’2013-14. For the first time, India’s
contribution crossed the 20% mark globally, making India 2nd largest
contributor globally in FY’2013-14.
Picture of
Keita Muramatsu