Honda to build scooter-only plant in Gujarat.

Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India recently laid the foundation stone for its fourth two-wheeler plant in Gujarat. The country's second largest two-wheeler maker will invest around Rs. 1,100 crore to set up the plant.

With an installed annual capacity of 12 lakh units, the plant, coming up in 250 acres in Vithalapur, 80 km from here, will be the world’s largest scooter-only facility.

The company already enjoys a 55 per cent share in India's scooter market and 22 per cent in the overall two-wheeler segment. It is planning to sell nearly 45 lakh units this fiscal, almost utilising the total production capacity of 46 lakh at three existing plants.

The new facility will increase the company's two-wheeler capacity to 58 lakh units, Keita Muramatsu, President and CEO, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, said recently.

Hero MotoCorp, the country's largest two-wheeler maker, has four operational plants in India-Gurgaon, Daruhera, Haridwar and Neemrana-with a total installed capacity of 94.5 lakh units a year.

The Vithalapur plant will start commercial production by the end of 2015, and is expected to achieve full production capacity of 12 lakh within a year. With this, Honda's total investment in India will become Rs. 6,200 crore. The company's three other manufacturing plants, making both scooters and motorcycles, are at Manesar (Haryana), Alwar (Rajasthan) and Kolar (Karnataka), with production capacities of 16 lakh, 12 lakh and 18 lakh units, respectively.


HBL