Royal Enfield, niche motorcycle maker and a division of Eicher Motors, that has sold around five lakh bikes in its 54-year history now plans to take up its annual sales figures to one lakh by 2013.
The Chennai-based company is also targeting to more than double the share of exports in its turnover from a current 5 per cent to 10-15 per cent in the next three years.
Royal Enfield bikes are now exported to 29 countries and the company currently taps only metros and a few of the tier-2 cities in India through just 10 retail outlets. "There is huge untapped potential for us to grow even in the Indian market and we are definitely looking at increasing our penetration", said Shaji Koshy, divisional general manager for sales and marketing of Royal Enfield.
He was talking at the sidelines of the launch of two new Enfield models, the Classic 350 and the Classic 500, priced at Rs 98,086 and Rs 1.25 lakh ex-showroom in Delhi respectively.
The Classic range was launched by the company in European countries in October 2008. The retro-look bike has been designed keeping in mind Royal Enfield's British character with the company's design team worked in close collaboration with Xenophya Design, UK. The engine was engineered in Italy while the fuel-injection system has contributions from Japan.
Royal Enfield is looking to increase exports of bikes to countries in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, besides strengthening its presence in Europe and the US. Besides, this year the company expects total sales to be around 50,000 units, compared with 43,298 units last year.
The current focus is on the 350 cc bikes for the Indian market and 500 cc Classic range bikes for the international market. The bike maker has registered a revenue of Rs 300 crore in the past nine months and currently enjoys only a 0.7 per cent share of the Indian two-wheeler market.
The company has indicated earlier that it plans to invest over Rs 65 crore in the next three years to double production capacity to one lakh units in its Chennai plant. It has already invested a similar sum in the existing facility so far.
