Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India CEO Keita Muramatsu says the next three to four years will be challenging years for all vehicle manufacturers. Pointing to demonetisation and BSIV emission norms, Muramatsu says the customer sentiment in rural India is recovering from the impact of demonetisation but demand is expected to stabilize only by the end of march when the new harvest season begins. Honda saw surge 79% month-on-month in January after a 20% fall in December. 

As the Indian government implements stricter emission norms and safety standards but the leveling with global standards will open up immense opportunities for the country. On the growth scale of Honda, Muramatsu says, in the last five years Honda showed 2.4 times growth and the market share doubled from 13% to 27%. Also, the investment in capacity creation has increased from 1.6 million units at a single plant to 5.8 million units across four plants.   

The demonetisation’s impact reflects and influences the buying behavior of the customer and the BSIV emission norms to be implemented by all the manufacturers by end of March 2017 and both the process involves cost and budgeting for both customer and manufacturer which affects the sales and growth of the Auto Industry.

Source: Economic Times