Royal Enfield, part of the Eicher Group, will invest Rs 500 crore in 2015 towards product development, capex and other development areas, said Siddhartha Lal, MD and CEO, Eicher Motors.

In a press release, Eicher said that its motorcycle business posted its best-ever yearly performance in 2014. The company recorded its highest ever total income from operations at Rs 3031.2 crore, an increase of  78 percent from Rs 1,702.5 crore in 2013. The company significantly improved profitability posting an EBIT of 22.5 percent bettering the 16.6 percent in 2013.

According to Lal, “Royal Enfield continues to grow at a phenomenal pace and this year we have achieved our best ever sales of over 300,000 units. In 2015, we plan to manufacture 450,000 units. With a view to become the leader in the global mid-sized motorcycling, Royal Enfield will build two new technology centres. The larger one will be at a new 4.5-acre property that we have acquired on Old Mahabalipuram Road in Chennai, and will be operational by Q2 2016; a smaller satellite centre is being set up in Leicestershire, UK, and will be operational by end-2015. These centres will significantly enhance our capability to execute our long-term product strategy.”

On the commercial vehicles front, Lal said, “After three years of the deep downturn, the CV industry seems to have bottomed out in Q4 of 2014 with early signs of revival in a few segments of the industry. We hope that this trend will strengthen and gain momentum in coming years.  We are ready with our Pro series of products for the entire 5-49 tonne category. Some of these products have already been introduced and the remaining will get introduced in 2015.”