DSK Hyosung will set up Rs 400-cr plant in Karad

Premium motorcycle maker DSK Hyosung plans to set up a new assembly plant  in Karad near Pune, a top company official said on Wednesday. 

With this plant, the company hopes to increase the percentage of localisation. In an interaction with Deccan Herald, DSK Motowheels Pvt Ltd Chairman Shirish Kulkarni said, “We are going in for an investment of Rs 400 crore in our new plant and our new products will be rolled out of this plant by end-2015. We have signed a technical agreement and the investment sharing agreement is yet to come. Products from the Karad plant will feature more localised content and help bring down prices.”

The company’s current major investment revolves around the setting up of the new Karad plant. “The plant will also house an R&D centre and will play a crucial role in customising new bikes and scooters,” Kulkarni said.

“We started assembling Hyosung superbikes under the brand name of DSK Hyosung since 2012 at our facility in Wai, Maharashtra. Currently, we assemble both bikes and engines at our facility. We assemble 14 bikes in a single shift today. Going forward, in line with growing demand, our plant is fully equipped to double our shift to match market requirement.”

“As a superbike assembling company, our efforts have always been into localisation as much as possible so that we are able to offer our customers the best price points. We are currently working on increasing the localisation element in our bikes to 10-15 per cent and plan to further raise this in future,” Kulkarni said. 

He said that as a result of sustained efforts, DSK Motowheels has been able to break through the threshold barrier and bring down costs from the Rs 2.79 lakh - Rs 5.8 lakh range in 2012 to Rs 2.63 lakh - 5.75 lakh.

The company sold over 1,850 bikes last year and hopes to achieve the target of 3,000 units across different variants this year. 

“The superbiking phenomenon is still largely evident in the bigger cities, and hence, we are doing extremely well in cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai, while efforts to ramp up in tier II and III cities are ongoing,” Kulkarni said.