UPDATE 1New India plant to up Yamaha capacity to million units
(Adds details)
NEW DELHI, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Yamaha Motor Corp (7272.T: Quote, Profile, Research)
will invest about $200 million in its Indian unit over three
years as it completes a third plant, which will ramp up
capacity to 1 million units, officials said on Thursday.
The Japanese bikemaker, which sold about 2 percent of the
4.4 million bikes offloaded in the country in the nine months
to December, expects its market share to touch 10 percent by
2010, as it launches premium models.
“For the coming three years, I think we will invest 7-8
billion rupees ($178-203 million),” Takashi Kajikawa, president
and CEO of Yamaha Motor, told a news conference at the India
Auto Expo.
For additional stories, pictures and video from the Auto
Expo go to in.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/special
“We’re looking at getting double-digit growth. We should
touch 10 percent (market share) by 2010,” P. Sam, marketing and
sales head of the group’s Indian operations, said.
Yamaha has seen a fall in its sales in India, with
April-December 2007 figures half of those for the corresponding
period of 2006, part of a general decline in bike sales in
India brought about by rising financing costs.
The firm will launch four new models in 2008. Two of them
would be of 125 cc and be launched in February. The other two,
both of 150 cc, would come in July and in November, Tsutomu
Mabuchi, CEO of Yamaha’s India operations, said.
By end-2010, Yamaha will complete its third plant in India,
on the outskirts of New Delhi, and raise capacity to 1 million
bikes annually, said Sam.
In the nine months to December, Yamaha produced 110,505
bikes in India from two plants, which are also on the outskirts
of the national capital.
(Reporting by C. Jacob Kuncheria, Editing by Mark Williams)
