Japanese two-wheeler maker Yamaha is not only confident of growing over 32 per cent but also sell over 6 lakh bikes and scooters this year compared to 4.5 lakh units last year depsite sluggish Monsoon .
“Monsoon is not going to impact Yamaha’s sales. In the January-May period this year we have grown by 32 per cent over the last year. We are expecting to continue like that in the rest of the year,” said Yamaha Motor India Sales Vice President- Sales & Marketing Roy Kurian.
“last year we sold 4. 47 lakh bikes and scooters and on the back of new model introductions the company hopes to sell 6 lakh units this year,” added Kurien.
Yamaha has a manufacturing unit in Surajpur (Uttar Pradesh) which has a production capacity of a million units.The comapny expects its Rs 1,500 crore second unit in Chennai to go upstream in November.
“With the start of the Chennai unit our capacity would go up to 2.8 million units per annum. Though, the production would start in November this year, the Chennai plant will touch 1.8 million capacity mark only by 2018,” Kurian said.
“The company is also looking to expand its sales network to around 1,600 dealerships, from the current 1,300, by December,” he added.
Yamaha on Monday launched upgraded variants of its 150 CC bikes - FZ and FZ-S - priced up to Rs 78,250 (ex-showroom Delhi). The company, which had first launched the FZ series in India in 2008, will start selling the two variants - FZ Version 2.0 and FZ-S Version 2.0 from Tuesday.
While the new FZ variant is priced at Rs 76,250, the FZ-S version would be retailed at Rs 78,250 (ex-showroom Delhi). The company is currently selling around 18,000 units per month of the FZ series.