Honda’s new scooter plant coming up in Gujarat

Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India has laid the foundation stone of its new plant which will come up at Vithalpur, Gujarat. Once completed, it will be the Japanese manufacturers' fourth plant in the country and is touted to become the world’s largest scooter plant.

This new plant is spread across 250 acres and is approximately 80km from Ahmedabad city. Once operational by end of 2015, it will have an annual capacity of 1.2 million units. In order to serve customers more efficiently with speed, undertaking this capacity expansion plan will increase HMSI’s total annual production capacity to 5.8 million units, including 1.6 million units at its first plant (Haryana), 1.2 million units at second plant (Rajasthan) and 1.8 million units at third plant (Karnataka).

“Indian automatic scooter market is growing at 2.5 times the speed of the overall two-wheeler industry growth. The latent demand of automatic scooter is so strong that with improving infrastructure in rural India, we foresee that this segment sale can go up to 35% of overall two-wheeler sales in 5-10 year horizon. As we gear up to take up this challenge of meeting the customer demand, Gujarat will an ideal home and a springboard to achieve greater heights. Now, the Honda automatic scooter you ride will not only be “Made in India” but also “Made in Gujarat," said Keita Muramatsu, president & CEO, HMSI.

Looks like Honda has taken serious note of Indian Prime Minister’s “Make in India” campaign. We can clearly see how Honda is bullish about the scooter market in the country and with increasing disposable income and growing economy, the company is expected to gain the maximum out of it.