Yamaha plans to sell 5 lakh bikes in 2013

The company has around 400 dealers, 250 bike stations; plans to double it to 1,200 touch points

Japanese two-wheeler major Yamaha has set a target to sell 5,00,000 units in 2013 (calender year) as against 3,50,000 units in 2012.

The company has said 50% of the sales will come from scooter.

Asano Masaki, managing director, Yamaha Motor India Sales Private Limited, a new company which was formed recently for marketing and sales of Yamaha two-wheelers, said "India is an exciting market, for the next 20 year it will continue to progress”.

Unlike in other Japanese majors fight among themselves for a market share, in India the company need to fight with Japanese brand and also on well established players such as Hero, Bajaj, TVS, said Masaki.

He added, the company is closely observing and studying the potential of India where it need to drive ourselves to a major growth trajectory.

“Not only short-term strategy is required for India, it also need both medium and long term strategies”, said Masaki.

One of the major challenges for the company is how to communicate with the society and the customer. The company adopted three strategies one directly (through advertisements and other marketing initiatives), through deals and three by way of CSR activities, he added.

“At present our market share is only 3%, we need to work on addressing this challenge to increase this percentage,” he said.

For the current year the company set a target of 500,000 units, of which nearly 50% will come from scooter segment - currently Ray only, which was launched only in September last.

On the export, the company set a target to export around 2.1 lakh units in 2013 calender as against 1.4 lakh units in calender 2012 to 45 countries.

Company's focus will be in 110-150CC segments, which hold majority of the industry sales.

“At this point we are not focusing on high-end bikes rather we would create new segments. We also see exports an area where we cannot afford to miss."

The company has around 400 dealers and 250 bike stations and plans to double it to 1,200 touch points (both put together during the year across the country, including in rural areas to reach out to customers.

Commenting on the upcoming plant near Chennai, he said, production is expected to commence by mid-2014. The plant will manufacture both bikes and scooters in this Chennai plant, which will attract around Rs 1,500 crore investment over a period of time.

The annual production capacity of the company will be around 1.8 million units. It may be noted, at present company has a manufacturing facility at Noida with a capacity of 1 million units.