Honda Siel Cars India has recommenced the production of the newest edition of the City sedan at its Greater Noida plant. This is the first time that the company has been able to manufacture the City after the earthquakes in Japan and floods in Thailand adversely affected its component supplies. However, the company is still waiting to start the production of its Brio and Jazz, though it expects to start developing the two hatchbacks by March 2012.
1000 units of the new Honda City have already been manufactured at the Greater Noida unit, allowing the car maker to clear its backlog to an extent. However, 6000 units of the Brio, which was launched in India last year, are yet to be delivered. Seeing the number of impending deliveries to be made, the Japanese manufacturer has already suspended new bookings.
The Greater Noida facility, with annual installed capacity of 1.2 lac units, will be crucial towards clearing this backlog. Talking about the Greater Noida plant, Jsnaneswar Sen, Senior Vice-President (Marketing and Sales), Honda Siel Cars India said, “Our expectation is that in terms of our capability to produce cars, we could reach 10,000 units a month by March-April as part supplies are getting restored but how much we produce will depend on market demand."
HSCI had trimmed manufacturing operations at its Greater Noida plant by 50 per cent after April 2011 due to the Tsunami that had occurred in Japan in March. After it reaches the maximum production potential of this facility, the company will start production at its second unit, located at Tapukara, Rajasthan
The company has lost approximately 6 months of production output, though it still managed to produce Civic and Accord. Now, support from foreign sister concerns will help the Indian arm of Honda to get manufacturing operations on track by March-April 2012. On this, Sen commented, "In this ongoing fiscal we have lost about six months of production due to disruption in supply of components following the tsunami in Japan and floods in Thailand. Now we have found alternate source from Japan and China."
Sen also said that there will be no new cars from Honda's stable in India this year and that the company will not try to offset losses due to reduced production by launching new models. Rather, the manufacturer will be focussing on clearing its waiting list in India. He added that the buoyant market response has raised the hope of the car maker, though it has still not let its guard down and is keeping an eye on macro-economic factors.
