Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India Private Ltd (HMSI) is aiming for 18% sales growth this year. The company plans to sell 15.5 lakh units in 2010, compared with 12.70 lakh units in 2009.
The contribution from motorcycles to overall sales is expected to go up to 40% from 30%. The company?s share in the motorcycle market will go up to 15% from 9% in 2009. HMSI is the market leader in the scooter segment with over 50% share.
With its Manesar plant saturated (16 lakh units a year capacity), the company is engaged in setting up its second manufacturing plant at Alwar in Rajasthan. It entails an investment of Rs 470 crore to produce 600,000 units a year. Another Rs 60 crore will be invested in new products and upgrade at Manesar to take the total investments to Rs 530 crore, said Toshio Kawatsu, group vice-president and director, HMSI.
In an interactive session with the mediapersons in Chennai on Thursday, he said: ?With two new motorcycle launches in the last few months, we hope to cross the 15 lakh mark to reach 15.5 lakh units in 2010, a growth of 18% over 2009. Similarly, the motorcycles contribution to overall sales will touch 40% in 2010 as against 30% in 2009.?
?If one were to go by the initial response to our two new motorcycles ? Twister and Dazzler ? as well as to existing motorcyle variants, we expect that our market share in this segment will touch 15% in 2010 as against 9% in 2009,? said Prabhu Nagaraj, AGM, HMSI. Nagaraj said: ?We are working on a number of products, but have no plans to introduce more vehicles at this point of time.?
On exports , he said: ?We expect to sell 1.2 lakh units in the overseas markets in 2010 compared with 80,000 units in 2009. We have been exporting to South American countries, neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, etc.?