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Japanese two wheeler giant Yamaha today said it expects the Indian market to become one of its top five markets by 2016 as it plans to roll out "many products" in the volume-driven mass segment here.
The company, which started procuring parts from India last year for its global operations, is also looking to make the country as its important component sourcing hub in the coming years.
"Indian market is very big and it's most important for us. Two wheeler sales volume here is gradually increasing. It will become our top five markets by 2016," Yamaha Motor Co (YMC) President and CEO Hiroyuki Yanagi told PTI in an interview here.
The company's wholly owned subsidiary India Yamaha Motor (IYM) had sold a total of 4.9 lakh units in 2012 and is at present among the top 10 operations of Yamaha globally.
YMC had clocked net sales of 1.3 trillion yen last year and is targeting to increase it to 1.4 trillion yen this year, Yanagi said.
He, however, did not share how much revenue India contributed last year.
"In 2016, our aim is to have a net sales of 2 trillion yen globally. We expect India to contribute significantly by then," he said.
In the mid term, the company is eyeing a share of 10% in India by 2016, when the market is pegged to be around 18 million units.
Asked about the company's strategy going forward, Yanagi said IYM will launch more two wheelers in the volume driven commuter segment.
"We will launch many products in this category. Our plan is to introduce 2-3 products every year," Yanagi said.
Last month IYM had said it is working towards rolling out a 100 cc or above category motorcycle priced at around USD 500 from India with the setting up of its fifth global research and development centre.
Talking about its sourcing plans, Yanagi said: "From last year, we have started procuring components from India for our other operations. It's negligible now, but we aim to source a significant amount of parts from here in future."
YMC has four global parts procurement centres -- India, Japan, China and the ASEAN region.
IYM today rolled out a new variant of its only scooter 'Ray'. The new variant 'Ray Z' is priced at Rs 48,555 (ex showroom, Delhi).
The company is targeting to sell 5,000 units of Ray Z every month, in addition to 9,000-10,000 units of Ray.
Beside, two new versions of its motorcycle SZ, priced at Rs 59,500 and Rs 62,500 (ex showroom, Delhi) were also launched today.
IYM is looking to sell 7.1 lakh units of motorcycles and scooters this year. This includes 2.1 lakh for exports.
The company's long-term target is to sell a total of 28 lakh units by 2018.
Last year, Yamaha had announced investment of Rs 1,500 crore to set up its third facility in India. The production at the new plant near Chennai will start by 2014 with an initial annual capacity of 4 lakh units, which will be expanded to 18 lakh units by 2018.
IYM has two manufacturing units at Surajpur in Uttar Pradesh and Faridabad in Haryana. While the Surajpur plant produces motorcycles for both domestic and export markets, the Faridabad unit makes two-wheeler parts.
