Honda banks on capacity expansion of two wheelers to reduce customer waiting period

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), fully owned two-wheeler subsidiary of Japanese player Honda Motor is expecting to reduce the waiting period for customers with the start first phase of production at its second two-wheeler production plant at Tapukara Industrial Area of Rajasthan.

“We have presently 2.5 lakh customers waiting and waiting period for customers also is about four months. We are expecting to bring down both the numbers with production in our second plant at Tapakara,” N K Rattan, Vice President, Sales, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, HMSI, said.

First phase of the production is expected start by the month of august this year. “In the first phase it will have capacity of six lakh units and the production will start by August, 2011. With this capacity expectatuion we hope that the waiting period will reasonably come down,” he said.

HMSI has made an investment of Rs 500 crore for this capacity expansion plan. However, Rattan said that there can be further investment there to increase the capacity further in the plant.

The company presenly having one fully operational plant at Manesar of Rajasthan which has a capcity of 16 lakhs.

Honda has sold 16.58 lakh units of two-wheelers in the last financial year and expecting that the sales figure will reach 21 lakh by the end of this financial year.

HMSI has also added a a sports bike in its portfolio with the launch of CBR-250 R, that costs Rs 1.46 lakh (Kolkata ex-showroom price).

“This is India's first affordable global sports bike. It has a power and design of a super bike and also available at affordable price. We plan to sell 30,000 units in the first year,” Rattan said at the launch of the model here.