Honda begins world's largest 'only scooter' plant in Gujarat

Spread across 250 acres, Honda’s fourth two-wheeler plant is approximately 80km from Ahmedabad city, and will be operational by end of 2015. The plant will have an annual production capacity of 1.2 million units, making it the world’s largest scooter-only manufacturing facility.

“Indian automatic scooter market is growing at 2.5 times the speed of the overall two-wheeler industry growth. The latent demand of automatic scooters is so strong that with improving infrastructure in rural India, we foresee that in this segment, sales can go up to 35 per cent of overall two-wheeler sales in the 5-10 year horizon. As we gear up to take up this challenge of meeting customer demand, Gujarat will be an ideal home and a springboard to achieve greater heights. Now, the Honda automatic scooter you ride will not only be ‘Made in India’ but also ‘Made in Gujarat’,” said Keita Muramatsu, President & CEO, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India.

Once the plant is operational, HMSI’s total annual production capacity will increase to 5.8 million units, including 1.6 million units at the first plant in Haryana, 1.2 million units at the second plant in Rajasthan and 1.8 million units at the third plant in Karnataka.

The foundation laying ceremony of Honda’s latest plant was attended by Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, Gujarat Finance Minister Saurabh Patel and other senior dignitaries of the Gujarat government. Key officials from Honda included Noriake Abe, Chief Operating Officer, Honda Motor Company Ltd., Asia & Oceania Region, Yoshiuki Matsumoto, Managing Officer, Honda Motor Company Ltd., President & CEO, Honda Motor India Pvt. Ltd., Keira Muramatsu, President & CEO, HMSI, Harbhajan Singh, Vice President, General & Corporate Affairs, HMSI and Yadvinder S. Guleria, Vice President – Sales & Marketing, HMSI.

“As the world’s biggest two-wheeler market, India is already a priority market for Honda. In the current fiscal 2014-15, Honda aims to sell 18.2 million two-wheelers worldwide and for the first time, India will contribute almost 25 per cent to global Honda sales. We have huge expectations from this project as this will be our flagship and benchmark plant in India in terms of volume, safety, quality, cost, associate skill and moral,” said Noriaki Abe, COO, Honda Motor Company Ltd., Asia & Oceania Region.

With a global presence in more than 40 countries, Honda’s worldwide two-wheeler sales volume was 17 million units in the financial year 2013-14. For the first time, India’s contribution crossed the 20 per cent mark globally, making India the second largest contributor globally in the financial year 2013-14.