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Japanese auto major Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), which has invested close to Rs 150 crore to make operational an integrated Technical Centre at its Manesar facility in October last year, will roll out its first indigenously developed product within a year.
Honda has hired 200 engineers to work at the Technical Centre in Manesar, half of whom belong to HMSI and remaining are on the payroll of Honda Research & Development India (HRID). “The research and development (R&D) team will leverage local sourcing and production infrastructure with innovation to the maximum extent to create products that directly respond to the needs of the customers in India”, said Keita Muramatsu, president and CEO, HMSI.
The company today launched its most affordable scooter model Activa-I priced at Rs 44,200 (ex-showroom Delhi).aiming to consolidate its leadership position in the domestic scooter market. Powered by an 110cc engine this gearless scooter will be sold across the country by June end. Honda also sells three scooters models Dio, Activa and Aviator all powered by the same 110 cc engine and available at prices between Rs 44,718 and Rs 53,547 (ex-showroom Delhi).
Honda has been losing share in the scooter market to rivals like Hero MotoCorp, Suzuki Motorcycle India and Yamaha India that had introduced new models in past few months.
Muramatsu said, “We are still leader in the automatic scooters segment and today we have entered into the personal compact segment with Activa–I that would increase our penetration in the urban markets. We have been facing production constrains that has principally led to decrease in our market share, which we aim to recover with our third plant coming upstream in Bangalore.” He informed that the company has an order backlog for 100,000 two-wheelers nearly 70 per cent of which are for scooters.
The company is also studying the possibilities of setting up a fourth plant for the Indian market but is cautious given the current sluggishness in the industry. The Indian two wheeler market grew by 2.9% to 13.79 lakh units in the past fiscal, which came down to 1.13% in the first two months of the current fiscal.
