DSK Motowheels Pvt. Ltd. is planning a Rs.350-crore project to set up a plant in Maharashtra to assemble and manufacture Korean bikes Hyosung.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday to announce the opening of DSK Hyosung showroom here, DSK Motowheels Managing Director Shirish Kulkarni said the new facility was necessitated as the existing CKD (completely knocked down) assembly plant in Wai, about 80 km from Pune, was “very small and only an assembly [unit].” At present, a total of 250 bikes were assembled a month.
General Manager (Sales and Marketing) Shivapada Ray said the company had exclusive rights to manufacture and sell Hyosung bikes in India. It bought the business of assembling and marketing of the bikes from Garware Motors last year. At present five Hyosung bike models, starting from 250-cc and priced between Rs.2.8 lakh and Rs.5.89 lakh, are available in the country.
Noting that the popularity of such bikes was on the rise in the country, Mr. Kulkarni said the target customers were high net worth individuals, those well-settled and passionate about biking. Since June, the company had sold 1,200 bikes.
On the proposed plant, he said the company was keen on S&T Motors of Korea, owner of the Hyosung bike brand, picking up a 50 per cent stake in the project. DSK had identified about 100 acres for the project some 200 km from Pune and intended to initially set up the assembly plant with a capacity to do 70-80 units a day.
The manufacturing that would begin with 125-cc Hyosung bikes, in technical collaboration with the Korean firm, would take three to four years. The localisation content in the bike, which now is restricted to the horn, post the manufacturing in the country would be around 45 per cent and the company had started looking for vendors.
