HMSI to invest Rs 1k cr in products, new assembly line

 The second largest two-wheeler maker Honda on Thursday said it will invest over Rs 1,000 crore in a new 0.6 million-unit assembly line and develop four new products to help it realise the 20% sales growth target set for itself for fiscal 2018.

“We will be opening the fourth assembly line at our Karnataka plant by July this year. This will be our 11th assembly line in the country. We will also launch four brand new models this financial year — two each scooters and bikes. For all these we have budgeted over Rs 1,000 crore in capex this year,” Minoru Kato, the newly-appointed president and chief executive officer at Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), told reporters here on Thursday at his maiden media interaction.

The company which clocked a revenue of a little over Rs 20,000 crore in fiscal 2017, up from Rs 18,000 crore in the previous year, has so far invested Rs 7,800 crore in the country since it started independent operations in early part of the last decade after breaking its association with Hero MotoCorp.

“From the growth side, we have set a target of selling over six million units this fiscal year, having already crossed the five-million milestone in fiscal 2017. To achieve this, we have set a sales growth target of 20%,” Kato said.

Describing fiscal 2018 to be Honda’s most ambitious scale-up in the country, Kato, who took over on April 1 from Vietnam, said that his next two focus areas will be to maximise customer satisfaction and improve the quality of daily operations, which he did not elaborate.

Kato said HMSI today contributes 30% of the volumes for Honda globally but refused to share the value contribution, making HMSI the largest unit for Japanese parent.

Hyundai lines up Rs 5,000 crore

Hyundai Motor Co is looking to almost double its sales from Indian operations to one million units by 2021, for which it will invest Rs 5,000 crore to bring in new models. The company plans to introduce eight models by 2020, catering to new segments, and hybrids.