Japanese bike-maker Yamaha on Thursday said it would set up its third plant in India with an investment of Rs.800 crore. The company is also planning to enter the scooter segment by this year-end, mainly targeting young girls. Stating that the company had started looking for land for the new manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, India Yamaha Motor CEO and Managing Director Hiroyuki Suzuki said: “We plan to invest Rs.800 crore in the next two years on capacity enhancement...we plan start operation of the new plant by 2014 when our sales is expected to go up to 10-lakh units”. The company, which today has two plants in U.P. and Haryana, sold 3.3-lakh units in 2011.
Bullish on growing Indian scooter market, Yamaha also unveiled its new scooter prototype model. “We plan to launch our scooter by the second-half of this year, mainly targeting college going girls. With the launch of our scooter, we will be present across all growing two-wheeler segment…scooters are expected to contribute 30 per cent of our domestic sales by 2014,” he added.
