Yamaha makes foray into Indian scooter market
Yamaha Motor on Friday said it has introduced its first scooter model in India, with a target to capture a fifth of this growing market for scooters by 2016. India Yamaha Motor, a unit of Japanese two-wheeler major Yamaha, introduced the "Ray" scooter, which will compete with models from rivals like Honda, Suzuki, Mahindra group and TVS Motor. Yahama has until now made motorcycles in India. The 113-cc Ray scooter -- billed as a model for young women -- costs 46,000 rupees ($850) at dealerships in New Delhi. The company said it plans to start building its third factory in India in the southern city of Chennai in 2014. Yamaha, which forayed into India in 1985, has two manufacturing plants, one on Surajpur in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and another in Faridabad in the northern Indian state of Haryana. Yamaha currently produces 0.4 million units in India, with a target of one million by 2014. "This would reach 2.8 million units by 2018," India Yamaha Motor's chief executive Hiroyuki Suzuki said in a statement. Motorcycles comprise the majority three-fourths of India's two-wheeler market, but scooters have grown at a faster pace in recent years, driven mainly by college students and young working women. Motorcycle sales in India grew 3.3 percent to 4.22 million units between April to August this year, according to data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. Scooter sales rose 23 percent to 1.17 million in the same period.
