India Yamaha Motor Private Limited, the Indian subsidiary of Japanese two-wheeler manufacturer Yamaha Motor Company, is aiming at producing 50 lakh units in the Indian auto industry by the end of year 2020. Under its future plans, the company would set up new production plants as well as try achieving a total market share of 10 per cent. The firm came as a joint venture in 2008 with Mitsui, another leading trading Japanese company, which manufactures a range of motorcycle and scooters. "We are eyeing a production capacity of five million units by 2020. For that, we would require more manufacturing plants in the country," informed Hiroyuki Suzuki, India Yamaha Motor CEO and Managing Director in an interaction with the media.
As of now, the company has two plants in the domestic region. The one at Greater Noida is mainly into production of two wheelers while the plant situated at Faridabad is involved into manufacturing of spare parts. It must be noted that the facility at Greater Noida has a production capacity of 10 lakh units annually, which would most probably increased or shared in the coming future. The firm has plans to establish a production plant at Chennai, also known as the Detroit of India due to the emergence of numerous automobile facilities. With the passage of time, Chennai has turned out to be an automobile hub with almost every major firm having a set up there, a major reason being the existence of port. The trend was started off by Ford Motors in 1995 and the newbie to join the lineage is Yamaha India. The company has plans to roll out a total of 18 lakh units by the year 2018.
The company is into a lot of research these days and a total analysis of the domestic market condition would help in taking the final decision of construction of new plants and future investments. However, the company has stated that Indian market has a lot of potential and it would turn out to be fruitful for them. A production capacity of two million units by the year 2016 has been targeted by the Japanese auto major. It is also planning to export 30 per cent of its total production of two wheelers. Presently, the company occupies a market share of 3 per cent in the motorcycle section and 5 per cent in the scooter space. The firm is planning to reach out to the maximum number of customers so as to achieve 10 per cent of total market share in scooter and motorcycles segment.
The firm is strong in the 150 cc sect, however, it does not have plans to come out with cruiser bikes. It is more of inclined towards bringing out commuter bikes. When questioned if it would come up with bikes over 150 cc, the company official gave a positive response. It is a well known fact that the automobile industry is going through a low phase but the firm expects the economy to get in a steady mode by 2017. Last year, it sold off 4.9 lakh units and is looking towards a total sale of 6.7 lakh units in this fiscal, including 4.6 lakh units of domestic sales and 2.1 lakh units of export sales. Yamaha has some of the best selling vehicles to its name such as FZ16, FZ-S, Fazer and R15. It has recently come up with the Special Edition of the popular FZ Series motorbikes – the FZ-S and Fazer in order to boost sales during the festive season. With the effort that the company has put into the domestic market, experts believe that it would reach its target pretty soon.
