Honda two wheeler is advancing the commissioning of its Gujarat plant with 1.2 million capacity by two months to January-end in order to meet the rising demand of its scooter. The current waiting period of Honda Activa scooter is around six months.

Keita Muramatsu, HMSI President and Chief Executive said:
“Our existing three plants are running at 100 per cent capacity as demand is rising faster than what we can offer. We still have around six-month waiting period for Activa. So we will be commissioning the Rs 1,100-crore scooters only plant in Gujarat by the end of next month instead of the earlier plan of end-March.”

Honda’s Gujarat plant is scooters-only plant at Vithalapur near Ahmedabad and this is world largest plant for any scooter maker. It will increase the company’s overall capacity to 5.8 million from the present 4.6 million.

Y.S. Guleria, HMSI Senior Vice President – Sales and Marketing, said
“As demand grows, the company will have to look for another greenfield plant as only the Karnataka factory has land available for brownfield expansion.”

Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India, is the leader in the scooter segment, which contributes over 62 % of its 4.6 million annual sales now.

It hopes to increase its bikes share by two percentage points to 40% next year or so, as the company hopes to produce more bikes from its existing plants after the Gujarat plant gets commissioned.