Hero MotoCorp, the leading two-wheeler manufacturer in India, is looking for an aggressive expansion in South and Central America. As a part of its expansion strategy, it is eyeing for setting up manufacturing units in Argentina and Brazil. The renowned two-wheeler brand has already a manufacturing facility coming up sometime soon in Colombia. It will definitely look forward to power its operations in South and Central America riding on the efforts of the facility in Colombia.
Pawan Munjal, the Hero MotoCorp Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, said, "We believe the factory in Colombia will be a good hub for supply to other markets for us in Central and Latin America. We will get into manufacturing in Brazil. Argentina also requires us to manufacture locally, which is also on the cards. We would like to enter the Brazilian market along with the Rio Olympics in 2016."
Incidentally, Hero MotoCorp has launched six of its most-selling bikes in this region to chart up sales of 1.2 million units from global business by 2020. The bike, which have already been rolled out are Splendor iSmart, Passion Pro, Eco Deluxe, which are its 100 cc variants; the 125 cc Hero Glamour, 150 cc Hero Hunk and the 225 cc Hero Karizma ZMR. The bikes will be put on sale across 120 outlets spread across the nation. Incidentally, the company had formed a completely owned subsidiary in July 2014 and started construction works of a manufacturing facility in Colombia.
The new project will cost Hero a sum of 70 million USD invested in capital expenditure and a net working capital across a three-year working period. He also said, "In the first phase we are going for manufacturing 75,000 to 80,000 units in annual capacity, going up to 150000 units in the next phase. Hero MotoCorp is expected to start production at this facility by 2015 middle. In the event, this two-wheeler giant will become the first Indian company to set up a manufacturing facility in Latin America.
Munjal also commented that the brand is planning to launch manufacturing facilities in over 50 nations in the near future as part of its expansion plans across the globe. It has a fixed a target of 2020, within which it will have a presence in 50 countries with more than 20 assembly units across the world.
