Chennai, January 4, 2013: India Yamaha Motor (IYM) has launched its first female rider training exercise, dubbed the Yamaha Female Riding Training program, at a glitzy event in Chennai.
The initiative by the two-wheeler manufacturer will see the company provide safety riding and basic training techniques to women across the country, starting with colleges. As part of the launch, IYM announced that the all-girls Ethiraj College in Chennai will be the first location for this training.
Speaking at the event, Roy Kurian, national business head, IYM, said that the programmes will be conducted at all Yamaha dealerships across the country. “Separate instructors will be appointed at each dealership to conduct this training,” he said. IYM has close to 400 dealerships and around 1,000 sales outlets in India. “Given that the population to scooters ratio in India is still quite low at 26:1, there’s a lot of potential for growth,” Kurian said, adding that in terms of female riders, the same ratio is 85:1.
The hands-on training programme will cover three hours of classes, including one hour of theory classes that will teach students on basic techniques like riding, braking, cornering, and handling. The event also saw a new colour – starry white – added to the Yamaha Ray’s options. Apart from Kurian, Masaki Asano, the newly appointed deputy managing director for IYM, and the Ray’s brand ambassador, actress Deepika Padukone were present at the event.
The company plans to expand its reach to more cities, increasing its dealer network from the existing 400-odd outlets to 2,000 by 2014. Recognising the growing demand for two-wheelers in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, IYM has embarked on building a strong dealership network in these cities. It is also working on its secondary network to be realigned to reach more customers in rural areas.
Meanwhile, the company has ended calendar year 2012 with an annual growth rate of 6 percent. Following its entry into the scooter market with the 113cc Ray, a varied motorcycle line-up and a range of customer-centric activities, the two-wheeler manufacturer clocked sales of 487,290 units in 2012 as compared to 460,815 in 2011.
In the domestic market, sales grew 1.4 percent, with 348,406 units sold in 2012 compared to 343,466 units sold in 2011. Export sales totaled 138,884 units in 2012 compared to 117,349 units in 2011, a growth of 21 percent.
By 2016, by which time the country is expected to have sales of 20 million two-wheelers, India Yamaha Motor is targeting an overall market share of 10 percent with 15 percent share of its revenues coming from the scooter segment.
IYM’s cumulative sales in 2012 (domestic and export) at 487,290 units were, however, below the company’s projections for the year made on May 14, 2012. The company had then projected a 23 percent year-on-year growth to 640,000 units (domestic: 450,000, exports: 190,000) for 2012.
New Chennai plant coming up
In May last year, IYM had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of Tamil Nadu for setting up a new two-wheeler factory near Chennai. The new facility will join the company’s currently operating factories at Surajpur (UP) and Faridabad (Haryana) which have a combined manufacturing capacity of 600,000 units per annum. This is slated to be increased to one million units.
Start of operations at the Chennai plant is planned for January 2014. The planned investment in the new factory and facilities is around Rs 1,500 crore over the next five years. The new factory will employ 1,800 people and initially have a capacity of 400,000 units. Production capacity will be increased in stages to a level of 1.8 million units annually by 2018, by which time the three plants put together will have a combined two-wheeler production capacity of 2.8 million units by 2018.
KARTHIK H