Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) has announced that it will be expand the annual production capacity of its fourth two-wheeler production plant located at Vithalapur, Gujarart. The scooter-only plant that was inaugurated in February 2016 with a production capacity of 0.6 million units initially, will be aiming to achieve an annual production capacity of 1.8 million units by the financial year 2020-21. Honda will be adding a new production line at the Vithalapur plant, a move which will see the company's domestic production of motorcycles and scooters increase up to seven million units by the end of this decade.
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Elaborating on this milestone, HMSI - President & CEO, Minoru Kato said, "Over the years, Honda has been investing and expanding its capacity to enhance customer's joy in the largest 2Wheeler market of the world. The additional capacity at our 4th factory reinforces our commitment to serve our customers faster, who have reposed their trust in brand Honda."
The production expansion will see the Japanese two-wheeler maker invest Rs. 6.3 billion at the facility. HMSI's Vithalapur plant commenced production with 0.6 million units in February 2016, which was expanded to a capacity 1.2 million units by June 2016. The company plans to add an additional 0.6 million units per annum with the new production line. The announcement also goes on to show that the popularity of automatic scooters is only going to increase in the coming years.
At present, Honda has four plants in India located at Manesar in Haryana; Tapurkara in Rajastan, Narsapura in Karnataka and the last one being in Gujarat's Vithalapur. The Narsapura plant has the largest annual production capacity of 2.4 million units, followed the Manesar two-wheeler plant currently that has a capacity of 1.6 millions units.
The Tapukara-based facility has a capacity of 1.2 million per annum. Once the expansion is complete, the Vithalapur facility will over take Manesar and Tapukara as Honda's second largest two-wheeler plant in India.
