If you go by sheer volume then you might totally miss out on how great Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Pvt. Ltd is doing. Ever since their split from Hero, Honda have been really aggressive in their approach to the Indian two wheeler market. It is quite clear as to what their target is, nothing short of the number one position. Over the last business year Honda has seen a staggering year on year growth of 30%. And with the scooter market performing exceptionally well, Honda are expecting a better growth rate this year. To prepare for this expected demand Honda is investing a sum of 5.85 billion rupees to expand its production capacity in India. Honda’s two wheeler factory in Narsapura Karnataka which has been operational since mid 2013 will now get an additional production line at the same site. This additional production line is expected to be functional in the first half of 2016 and will take HMSI’s production capacity from 4.2 million units annually to 6.4 million units annually. The Narsapura production facility currently caters mainly to the scooter and lower capacity motorcycles. Now it is still not clear whether Honda will also start producing/assembling the bigger Honda motorcycles here. With the CBR650F in the pipeline for launch along with updated versions of the CBR250R and the CBR150R, there is a good chance that these motorcycles will also be made at this facility.
Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India over the last year have been concentrating on lower capacity models. Understandably so, since that’s where they have the highest quantity of sales. The current market leader Hero Motocorp is also setting themselves up for new products. Currently although they have only two scooters in their line up, more are on the way. Their upcoming scooters will feature engine and technology that has been developed in house by Hero Motocorp and its partners and will not have any Honda influence. Honda has their work cut out for them in order to match and overtake the sales volume Hero Motocorp does. But surely we are seeing all the right steps and decisions being made. Although we sure wish we could get the updated bigger capacity machines sooner.
