Royal Enfield to set up third plant near Chennai.

Royal Enfield, the two-wheeler arm of Eicher Motors, plans to set up a third plant in Vallam Vadagal, near Chennai.

'The board has approved to set up a third plant at Vallam Vadagal. It will eventually give us total capacity of nine lakh units per annum by 2018,' Eicher Motors managing director and CEO Siddhartha Lal said.

The company is already in the process of raising production capacity at its two plants on the outskirts of Chennai to 4.5 lakh units per annum by the end of this year.

The additional capacity would primarily come from the first phase of the new plant, the work on which would begin early next year, he added.

Lal said the company would finalise the investment amount for the new plant during its board meeting in February next year.

The company plans to launch two new models -- one each in 2016 and 2017 -- based on new engine platforms.

The company, which sells various popular models like Bullet, Classic, Thunderbird and Continental GT, also plans to expand its sales network in the country. 'By the end of the year, we plan to have 500 dealerships across India in a single unified retail identity,' Lal said.

Royal Enfield is also looking to expand its presence in the international markets. Towards this, it announced its first direct distribution subsidiary outside India, in North America in August this year.

'North America is a nodal market for motorcycles and one of the biggest in value terms. Given its critical importance to our global ambitions, we have decided to operate our wholly-owned subsidiary there,' Lal said.

'We will open our first exclusive branded retail store in the United States in Milwaukee in first half of 2016,' Lal said.

In August, Royal Enfield announced its entry in Indonesia, the third largest volume motorcycle market in the world. 'Our first exclusive store in Jakarta will be launched later this month,' he said.



TOI