September 21, 2012: Honda Motor Co’s CEO and president Takanobu Ito (pictured) in his annual speech earlier today has confirmed growth directions for the company’s operations in India. He also said that Honda has bounced back after the setbacks in 2011 when it was forced to deal with the appreciation of the yen and the temporary suspension of production around the world due to the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the flooding in Thailand.
In 2011-12, Honda sold 15 million motorcycles and 3.1 million automobiles worldwide. Its target for 2016-17 is over 31 million sales combining 25 million two-wheelers and six million automobiles.
India, among the emerging markets, clearly is a key player in that growth. According to Ito, “In India, Honda will strive to further grow its motorcycle business through introduction of highly-competitive models in the 100cc segment, which is the largest segment in the motorcycle market in India, and through the start of production at the third plant in India which is scheduled to be operational in the first half of 2013.”
Autocar Professional has learnt that Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India is expected to roll out around four new 100-150cc two-wheelers including a scooter between the years 2013 and 2014.
As regards its automobile business, Honda will implement global operation reform through concurrent development by all six regions, adoption of locally optimised design drawings and improvement of production efficiency through global sourcing.
The Japanese major will also roll out a bunch of new cars which are part of product developments designed to double sales to six million cars per annum by March 2017, three million of them in emerging markets. “Now is the time to counter-attack,” said Ito. “The goal is ambitious but achievable. We must work towards it.”
Honda’s global operation reform has been implemented for the development of the all-new Fit (Jazz) series which will be introduced in developed markets starting 2013. Within two years after that, Honda will also roll out the City and a new small SUV model, each with different individual characteristics.
In China, while strengthening local development capability, Honda will introduce products that put more focus on Chinese customers. It plans to introduce over 10 new and full-model-change models between 2013 and 2015. In addition, it will continue introducing locally-developed original models to strengthen the product lineup in China.
In Asia’s highly-competitive low-price markets, Honda will add saloon-type and utility-type models built on the platform of the Brio, its strategic model for Asia, and also strengthen mutually complementary structure in the region especially among Thailand, Indonesia, India and Malaysia. While the Brio saloon (computer-generated illustration depicted below) is expected in India next year, the new City and the new Jazz will be introduced in the Indian market in 2014-15.
Importantly, in India, where the company has lost out on the diesel car sales boom due to its petrol-only stable, Honda has confirmed its new diesel platform. Ito said: “An all-new diesel engine will be adopted sequentially to new models starting in FY2014. In addition to high fuel efficiency, the cost competitiveness of the diesel engine will be enhanced through local sourcing and local production to make new diesel models more affordable for customers.”