Japanese two-wheeler maker Yamaha Motor Co on Tuesday announced the establishment of a research and development (R&D) centre in India, its fifth globally, to develop low-cost models not only for India market but also for exports.
The Yamaha Motor Research and Development India (YMRI) at Surajpur, Uttar Pradesh will also serve as the company’s India Integrated Development Center. Other YMRIs are at Italy, Taiwan, China and Thailand.
Elaborating on YMRI, its MD Toshikazu Kobayashi, said: “We plan to achieve lowest cost models and parts in the world through INDRA (Innovative and New Development based on Responsible Analysis) activity meant to provide optimized specification thorough investigation in product life cycle.”
The company said that the motorcycle market in India has been growing constantly in recent years; at 14 million units, it overtook China in 2012 and is poised to grow to 16 million by 2015. It added that sales of motorcycles and scooters reached 3.50 units in 2012 and expected to reach 5 lakh units in 2013 and 1 million in 2015.