Yamaha in India aims to end the present calendar year with a lower double digit growth in domestic sales. The company is targeting about 10 per cent rise in domestic sales, while its export volumes are likely to be flat or little lower.
The Japanese auto maker had ended the year 2014 with 23 per cent growth in domestic sale of two-wheelers.
During this calendar year, the company expects its total sales to touch 7.8 lakh units as against 7.4 lakh units in 2014. So, it targets domestic sales of 6.2 lakh units (5.66 lakh units in 2014) and export volumes of 1.6 lakh units this year.
With sluggish motorcycle market, the company’s bikes sales are hit and have seen a decline of about three per cent during April-September 2015 when compared with a year-ago period. But, its scooter volumes continue to register strong growth.
Despite challenging bike market conditions, the company is going ahead with its capacity expansion plan and will boost the capacity of Chennai plant from 4.5 units now to 1.8 million units by 2018.
“Our capacity expansion plan is on track. We will immediately ramp up Chennai capacity to six lakh units and to 1.8 million units by 2018. This expansion is to support our growth plans and boost market share to 10 per cent by 2018 from about four per cent now,” said Takashi Terabayashi, Managing Director & CEO of India Yamaha Motor.
Yamaha and its vendors will invest about Rs.650 crore over the next three years in the capacity expansion.
With its key vendors housed in the same area, the Chennai unit is set to emerge among the most cost-competitive factories of Yamaha group. Exports will also be a key focus area and it will target to export about of third of production.
Mr. Terabayashi said the Chennai factory and vendors in its complex would employ close to 4,000 people by 2018 and about half of them would be women.
