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Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI), the two-wheeler unit of Japan’s Honda Motor, is setting up its third plant with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore to meet rising demand.
Spread across 350,000 square metres, the plant at Narsapur industrial area, 52 km away from Bangalore, will be operational by the first half of 2013.
HMSI on Thursday laid the foundation stone of the plant. The plant will have a capacity of 1.2 million units a year and will employ 3,000 people.
The third facility will raise the company’s overall capacity to four million units a year. At present, HMSI produces 1.6 million units from its Manesar plant in Haryana and 1.2 million from the Tapukara facility in Rajasthan. The company said, “It is preparing for further and rapid growth of the market.”
Utilising production technologies refined at its Manesar and Tapukara plants as a starting point, HMSI said it would “strive to improve process ergonomics and employ more advanced automation and other measures to reduce the burden on associates at the third plant”.
India is the world’s second-largest motorcycle market after China. Two-wheeler sales in India reached 11.32 million units in 2010 (up 30 per cent compared to 2009). In the same period, HMSI’s sales grew by 40 per cent to 1.526 million units, with a share of around 10 per cent.
The market leader is Hero Motors, followed by Bajaj Auto.
HMSI has three automatic scooters (Activa, Dio and Aviator) and six motorcycles (CB Twister, CBF Stunner, CB Shine, CB Unicorn, CB Unicorn Dazzler and CBR 250R).
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