June 13, 2012: DSK Hyosung, the newly formed partnership between South Korea’s S&T Motors and the Pune-based DSK Group to sell Hyosung-branded sports bikes, has set a target to sell 3,000 bikes during the rest of the current financial year. Hyosung, which had a partnership with the Garware Group till recently, sold over 600 bikes last year. “India is the most important market for S&T Motors now,” Justin Lee, head of S&T Motors’ global marketing team, told Autocar Professional.
The Indo-Koreabn partnership has charted out an aggressive localisation plan to be able to price the Hyosung bikes more competitively. “We are aiming to localise the bikes up to 90 percent in 18 months from now,” said Shirish Kulkarni, managing director, DSK Motowheels (pictured with the DSK Motowheels team).
The company, which currently assembles the bikes in a facility acquired from Garware Motors, is in the process of acquiring land to set up a new plant. “We would like to purchase land in the Mumbai-Pune belt as it will be convenient to import kits through the JNPT port,” said Kulkarni, after launching the Hyosung GT250R. The 28bhp sportsbike is priced at Rs 2.75 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi). It accelerates from 0-100kph in 9.96 seconds and has an estimated top speed of 140kph. The GT250R competes with the Kawasaki Ninja 250 and the Honda CBR250R in the Indian market.
SUMANTRA BAROOAH