After a short stint in India with Kinetic Engineering, South Korea-based Hyosung, part of the S&T Group, is re-entering India through a tie up with Pune-based Garware Motors.
Hyosung is planning to sell superbikes such as GT650R and ST7 by assembling them at Garware?s assembly plant near Pune, said Diya Garware Ibanez, managing director of Garware Motors.
Speaking to FE, Ibanez said, ?We will be the first to enter the 650 cc-700 cc space, as other two-wheeler manufacturers are either selling motorcycles that are below the 250 cc category or between 800 cc and 1,000 cc in India. Our bikes are affordable and this will help us garner a substantial chunk of this untapped market.?
The GT650R will be priced below Rs 5.5 lakh and the ST7 will come for less than Rs 6 lakh. Garware Motors has set up an assembly plant at Wai, 100 km from Pune in Satara district of Maharashtra, with an initial investment of Rs 20 crore to make eight units a day. These bikes will be brought under CKD route and will be assembled at our facility, she said.
?We will have 10 dealerships initially (at major cities) across India with 3S service to ensure speedy delivery as well as quality service. The bookings for the two products will commence from March and the delivery from April/May this year. We are targeting sale of 2,000 units in the first full year of operations to be scaled up to 5,000 units a year by 2013,? she said. The company also plans to bring in other superbikes of Hyosung going forward. ?We will have one more bike in next three months and another one by year-end,? she added. The company will target filmstarts, businessmen, sports bike lovers (youngsters) who seek to have superbikes at an affordable cost. ?We believe our aggressive pricing will get us more customers no sooner than later,? she said.