India Yamaha Motor, the manufacturing arm of the Yamaha Motor, Japan, has hinted at setting up a fourth plant to not only achieve 10% market share by 2020 but also make India a hub to supply products to neighbouring as well African countries in a big way. The company also said that its premium products (FZ series and other bikes above 150CC) will be made out of both Surajpur and Faridabad, while Chennai will handle scooters, commuter bikes.

The company which has three plants – Faridabad, Surajpur and Chennai – has a total installed capacity of 2.5 million units, including 1.8 million units per annum from  Chennai plant. It hopes to fully utilise the entire capacity by 2018-19 and to grow beyond, Yamaha India needs one more plant, may be much bigger in size, Takashi Terabayashi, managing director, India Yamaha Motor, told the FE.

“Though a late entrant into the Indian two-wheeler market, we are confident that we will be one of the top players going forward. We have ended 2015 with little less than 8 lakh units owing to lack of capacity at both Surajpur and Faridabad. With the Chennai plant in place, we hope to cross the 1 million mark by 2016 end and would fully utilise our installed capacity of 2.5 million across three plants by 2018-19,” he said.

“With the lower penetration vis-a-vis ASEAN countries and China we have a long way to go in India. Being the second largest populated country in the world and the infrastructure bottlenecks, two-wheeler segment holds immense opportunity and Yamaha has drawn a clear road-map, including setting up of a fourth plant, most probably in Tamil Nadu,” Takashi said. He edclined to give any further details.

To a question, he said: “The domestic market is expected to grow from 17 million to 30 million by 2020 and we will be targeting a 10% market share. For which we need additional capcity.” The new plant, with much higher capacity, will not only cater to domestic growth but also help India as a hub to export to over 60-odd countries.

“Interestingly, to help us to grow fast, our vendors too have decided to invest more close to our plant near Chennai. The vendors, who have invested around Rs 650 crore so far, will be scaling upto Rs 1,000 crore by 2018 and would invest more when we set up our fourth plant,” Takashi pointed out. The vendors park is located in 68 acres of land adjancent to the plant.

According to him, the company has invested around Rs 1,200 crore out of  the Rs 1,500 crore commitment and would invest the remaining in the next two years, including on new products and newer technologies. “Similarly, we wll be ramping up our sales network 500 dealers to 700 and 2,200 touch points to 3,000 by year-end,” he added.