Honda has been a strong brand in the Indian two-wheeler and four-wheeler market. The Japanese auto giant has a strong fleet of vehicles across segments in the local market. Honda has seen a good amount of sales number in the automatic scooter segment, especially with its popular ‘Activa’ scooter. The recently launched Activa 125 has further boosted its sales numbers.
As per a recent report, scooter sales in the country have grown to 29% this year and account to form about 27% of total two-wheeler as against 8% seen a decade ago. New customers have shown an increase in interest for unisex scooters. To cater to this new trend Honda has reportedly been considering setting-up a world’s largest scooter plant at a cost of about Rs. 1,100 crore in Ahmedabad, Gujarat that shall hold capacity of rolling out about 12 lakhs units annually.
Speaking more on the occasion YS Guleria, Honda VP for marketing and sales in India said, “Even as we have more than doubled our scooter capacity in India, we have not been able to match up with the demand. After 13 years of its launch, Activa continues to be on 'waiting' even as competition has multiplied ten times. Even though we raised our production with three new scooters, demand still outstrips our estimates. While scooter production has trebled in the past decade, we still have a backlog of 60,000 scooters that should multiply in the festive months ahead.”
Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (HMSI) holds about 53% market share, thereby leads the scooter market in India. The new plant is expected to generate about 3,000 more job opportunities in the country and aid the company in bringing down the waiting periods to a considerable extent.
Source: ET
