Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India has announced plans to sell 45 lakh units in 2014-15, a jump of 21% over the previous fiscal. Honda has achieved highest ever sales of 37.21 lakh units in the fiscal year 2013-14. The target for the current fiscal year is to sell around 45 lakh units and grow by 21%. Stating that sales performance so far this year has been as per plan, Honda is sure that it will meet the target set for this year as well. Honda has strengthened its position as India’s second largest 2-wheeler company which boosts their confidence even more.
Referring to its expansion plans, Honda is setting up a new fourth plant at Ahmedabad in Gujarat in order to serve customers more efficiently with speed. The new plant is likely to begin production in 2015-16 with an initial annual capacity of 1.2 million units. All this would take Honda’s total production capacity to a staggering 5.8 million units per year. If all factories run at full pace throughout the year, then there is very little stopping Honda. Reason? It has become the largest scooter selling company in India and motorcycle sales and plans are quite aggressive in volume segments. Honda has also added 800 touch points across the country last year and this year it plans to create even more, in fact, 1000 brand new outlets!
Honda also highlighted the company’s emphasis on safety. Honda says they have been promoting safe riding activities across India and has been helping spread the safety message since decades. The growing demand for its two-wheelers has helped Honda do the same. Honda has planed to spread this message in vast rural areas by expanding its network, giving the right product, launching aggressive campaigns and all of this is in an innovative way. Honda has launched its new plan called ‘traffic park’ for the first time, starting with the eastern part of India. The company has simultaneously inaugurated two new traffic parks in Odisha at Bhubaneswar and in Cuttack. For this, Honda has associated with respective Regional Transport Authorities (RTO) of Bhubaneswar-II and Cuttack.
Honda is ready with a lot of motorcycles in the year 2015. A 160cc motorcycle coming in two months while the CBR300R is on its in by the end of the year. A Dream series motorcycle is on its way within the next three months as well. The new well priced CB Trigger is working wonders for Honda and the brand new Activa 125 is already making them dance to the tunes of rock and roll. We will only be able to gauge the response of the 125cc Activa after the first three months of numbers to tell whether it has been a success or not. Till then, Honda has a lot of dreams to accomplish and we are waiting too.
