Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India is tweaking its portfolio to make a serious pitch for the motorcycle market in India
 When the Hero Group terminated its 26-year-old joint venture, Hero Honda, with the Japanese auto major Honda Motor Corporation (HMC) in December last year, the decision did not spring a major surprise. Reports of friction between the JV partners had been doing the rounds since HMC decided to enter the Indian market through its wholly-owned subsidiary Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) in 1999.
Post the split, the two companies are free to follow their desired growth path. So while the Hero Group is working out a new brand strategy, HMSI is preparing to step on the gas and corner a larger share in what is ranked as the second largest two-wheeler market in the world.
But that, to use a cliché, is easier said than done. Scooters currently are the mainstay for HMSI — it is the No. 1 player in the segment in the domestic market with 43.2 per cent share — and to compete effectively in the two-wheeler market in India, the company needs to make an imprint in motorcycles, a segment where it is No. 4 with a share of 7.4 per cent. (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers data for April-January )
The Honda management knows how the odds stack up. Says Shinji Aoyama, president and chief executive officer, HMSI, “Whatever we did not have in our product portfolio we are in a hurry to fill up. Introducing inexpensive models is a crucial area for us. While we will not disturb existing Hero Honda customers, we will concentrate extensively in beefing up our line-up in the country.”
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