India Yamaha Motor targets young women with new Ray scooter

July 23, 2012: India Yamaha Motor has roped in actor Deepika Padukone to endorse its new scooter offering, the Ray which was showcased at the Auto Expo earlier this year. This is the first time that Padukone is endorsing an automotive product. While the Bollywood star will endorse the scooter business, John Abraham, another Bollywood actor, continues as brand ambassador for the company’s bikes.

The Ray scooter is targeted at women in their early 20s and Yamaha will hope that Padukone, who will make appearances in commercials already lined up, will provide appropriate value addition to the brand and a focus of identity with the target audience.

The biggest players at present in the scooter sector are Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India with its Activa and HeroMoto Corp with the Pleasure. While the Activa sold 103,088 units in June 2012, the Pleasure sold 24,895 units. The Ray scooter will initially be produced at the Surajpur plant and remains Yamaha’s priority for this year. However, the platform and engine will be used for other variants/models as well.

India Yamaha Motor, which expects scooters to contribute 40 percent of its total sales by 2014, signed an MoU with the Tamil Nadu government in May 2012 for the construction of a new factory near Chennai. It currently has factories at Surajpur (UP) and Faridabad (Haryana). The new factory, which will have a shopfloor space of 114,000 square metres, will be located in an industrial park in Vallam Vadagal near Chennai.

According to Roy Kurien, national business head, India Yamaha Motor, the new plant will have a production capacity of 1.8 million by 2018. Construction is slated to begin in September 2012; completion and start of operations are planned for January 2014 with the rollout of the Ray. The planned investment in the new plant is around Rs 1,500 crore is spread over the next five years.

On the sales front, the company is targeting sales of over 400,000 units in calendar 2012. In 2011, it sold 330,000 units. Like it did for its motorcycles, India Yamaha Motor plans to replicate the same top-down market strategy for the scooter segment by introducing the niche models first followed by generic models.

AMIT PANDAY