Yamaha to make India a manufacturing hub for exporting bikes

"We have enough infrastructure to manufacture premium and deluxe bikes for the international market. We will manufacture premium and deluxe bikes for overseas markets from India. There is a huge demand in both the bike segments," India Yamaha Motor's National Business Head, Pankaj Dubey, told reporters here.

The company is presently exporting premium segment bikes like YZF-R15 and FZ series to Colombia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Kenya, Bangladesh and the Philippines. The company's Indian unit supplied 66,904 bikes in fiscal 2010 to Yamaha's global operation compared with 38,639 units in 2008-2009, a jump of 73 per cent.

"We are seeing a huge demand for exports which grew at 73 per cent last year. The demand will increase more this year on the back of a huge demand for our bikes in the overseas market," he said, adding Yamaha has optimum resources to export across models to overseas markets. The company has gained a 12 per cent market share in the two-wheeler market, up from a market share of 5 per cent in 2006.

"In the premium and deluxe segment, we have a market share of 12 per cent and we are targeting 20 per cent by the end of this year," he said. "This segment is very crucial for us as it is the main growth driver for our company," Dubey said. Yamaha is ranked fifth in the two-wheeler market in India and it is dominated by Honda Motorcycles, Hero Honda and Bajaj.

"We don't see any direct competition between Yamaha's offerings and other companies. The Indian biking market is undergoing a complete transformation in terms of both product offerings and customer preferences. We are very unique in the industry," he said.