The Japanese carmaker’s wholly-owned Indian arm – Honda Cars India (HCIL) – has achieved the two-million production milestone in the country. The landmark comes two-and-a-half decades after it first began manufacturing operations with the City sedan at its mother plant in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, in the year 1997.

Over the years, the company has enjoyed an extremely high brand reputation and developed a loyal customer base owing to the quality and reliability of some of its global models like the Civic, CR-V, Accord and Jazz. While operations at the Greater Noida plant started off with a manufacturing capacity of 30,000 units annually, the company, in 2008, expanded the capacity at this unit to 1,00,000 units over three shifts.

In 2014, the carmaker further augmented its capacity in India by 1,80,000 units with a new greenfield plant in Tapukara, Rajasthan, taking its total annual capacity to 2,80,000 units.

However, to restructure its domestic business in India towards profitability, HCIL, in December 2020, announced a plan to cease production at its Greater Noida plant and only continue operations from its Tapukara unit. The company’s downsizing and rationalisation strategy was able to bear fruit as it turned profitable for the first time in three years.

According to Takuya Tsumura, president and CEO, Honda Cars India, “The historic milestone of two million production roll out in India is a testimony to Honda’s commitment to the ‘Make in India’ initiative over the last 25 years. We express our sincere gratitude to all our customers, dealer partners and supplier partners for their confidence in us and making Honda a very loved and trusted brand in the country.” 

“Our state-of-the-art manufacturing operations in India are equipped to manufacture automobiles and components of global quality standards for supply to both domestic and export markets. We remain committed to providing all our customers with the most advanced, cutting-edge technology products for a premium and worry-free ownership experience, which add value to their daily lives,” he added.

HCIL has significantly lost market share to competitors such as Hyundai and Kia in the last few years, owing to the lack of an SUV-intensive product portfolio. Currently, HCIL is set to phase out the Jazz, WR-V and fourth-generation City and is supposedly working on India-specific midsize and compact SUVs, with the latter likely expected to break cover around mid-2023. But for the time being, the City and Amaze continue to be its bread-and-butter models in the country.

The company has cumulatively invested Rs 10,000 crore in its India operations since inception and the two-million-production milestone was accomplished with a City sedan rolling off its assembly line.