Honda is growing strong in the two wheeler market in India with its leading area being gearless scooters. In India, the gearless scooter segment is ace of Honda. Honda Activa is the most popular gearless scooter in India, Honda Aviator being the another product which is not so popular in India. Customers are willing to wait for long waiting periods to get their Activa. There is competition like Suzuki Access, TVS Wego, Hero Honda Pleasure, Bajaj Crystal, Mahindra Rodeo etc. but none of them is as popular as is the Activa. This customer support has encouraged Honda to work on more gearless scooters for India. Also the growing demand for gearless scooters in India both in rural and urban areas makes all the more business sense to come up with more of such products.
Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (HMSI) President and CEO, Shinji Aoyama quoted:
Demand for gear-less scooters will be more in Tier II and III cities. We will continue to manufacture more scooters to meet demand in the domestic market.
HMSI is also going to add 100 new dealerships to its existing 1200 dealerships in India by financial year 2012. The new plant of HMSI at Rajasthan will also be operational by July 2011 which will help increase the production and will bring down the waiting time of Activa which is as high as 4 months. The new plant will add an additional capacity of about 6 lakhs units per year once its operational. This capacity will be eventually increased to 12 lakh units from the Rajasthan plant only. The sales estimate for the financial year 2011-12 is approximately 21 lakh units which is about 27% higher than the previous fiscal.
