 "Anoop Prakash")
Harley-Davisdon India's managing director Anoop Prakash is optimistic for luxury bike market of India. With opening of new dealership in Pune, the company has aggressive expansion plans for India which includes manufacturing of Harley Davidson's Street 750 from India, dealership expansion and market future. Prakash, in an interview with Hrishikesh Joshi talks about the recent developments. Edited excerpts:
There have been news of Harley Davidson bringing in smaller capacity engine bikes for emerging markets including India. Could you share the road map with us?
Even I have heard this many times. These are all baseless reports. We do not have any plan to bring smaller capacity engine bikes for emerging markets including India.
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What is your expansion plan for India?
Currently, Harley Davidson offers a range of 11 models from each of its five families - Sportster, Dyna, Softail, V-Rod and Touring - in the Indian market. We assemble nine models of Harley-Davidson from this facility on CKD basis. We are going to utilise our plant in India to build the 'Street' models.
The Harley-Davidson Street 750 will be manufactured from our plant in Bawal, Haryana. We have already made additional investments (additional 35%) for this venture. This will be operational by mid of 2014. The Street 750 will be first launched in January 2014 in Goa at India Bike Week and later at Delhi Auto Expo. We are looking at manufacturing 7000 to 10000 bikes simultaneously from US and India.
Will you be exporting from India?
We will export to markets like Spain, Italy and Portugal. This will start almost simultaneously when we launch the Street 750 by mid of 2014. Exports to South East Asia will not happen in the first year, we will evaluate the markets first.
Despite slowdown, even first half of this year they have registered sales of 50%. How do you see India as a market over the next 2-3 years?
The market is still developing for India.Since the retail operations in India in 2009, there are nearly 4000 Harley-Davidson bikes on Indian roads. This feat can be attributed to company's success in building a strong leisure motorcycle culture in India. In 2008, the market size was only 1,000 units.
Now, we have grown to double digit sales and Harley-Davidson holds 60% market share in this segment. The annual growth rate will be around 20% in near future. In a city like Pune we have 150 customers and I am sure, with this show room the number will grow in future.
What about dealer expansion plan?
We are opening three more dealership centres in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Goa by end of 2013. In the year 2014, we have a plan to add three more dealerships. The tier-II cities like Surat, Coimbatore, Calicut and Lucknow are also on our road map. In total, we will be having 16 dealers across India by end of 2014.
British motorcycle brand Triumph entered India. How do you see the market in future?
We welcome Triumph to India and wish them very all the best for their operations. As I said before, the Indian market is still developing for There is huge opportunity in 500 cc segment.
Few years ago, luxury car market was a very niche market and now it has reached to double digit growth. This is a very significant change for entire luxury segment. Customers are upgrading to higher versions for bikes.
