Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt Ltd (HMSI) on Wednesday said the decision to set up a second manufacturing plant in the country would be taken soon. The company said its existing plant, at Gurgaon in Haryana, was working at full capacity with no room for expansion and so there was an urgent need for a second plant. ?We are doing an internal study on a second plant and should take a call in couple of months.
Our existing plant in Gurgaon is fully stretched and we cannot increase capacity at the current site so we will look at having a second plant at another location,? said Shinji Aoyama, president & chief executive of Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Pvt Ltd, adding that the Gurgaon plant will reach 100% utilisation (1.5 million) in the next financial year.
This is also in line with its plans to sell 1.5 million motorcycles and scooters in the country in 2010-11. The company expects to close this fiscal with sales of 1.25 million units. Aoyama, however, did not divulge details on the investment and capacity being looked at the new greenfield plant. N K Rattan, marketing and sales head, HMSI, said, ?It takes at least fourteen to fifteen months to set up a plant and we are going to start of this calendar year.
We want to set up a second plant with capacity that can serve us for next 10 years like the existing plant has.? He added that the company already has few offers on the table from state governments and is analysing them as well as the products it would like to produce at the new plant.
Meanwhile, the company said it expects a growth of 20% in sales in the next fiscal, with its new 110 cc offering CB Twister expected to garner 2.20 lakh units in 2010-11. The figure includes export plans for neighbouring countries. Other products launched by the company include the New CBF Stunner and New Dio scooter.
CB Twister is HMSI?s first product in the 100 cc segment, a segment in which Hero Honda has a share of more than 50%.