With eight million units planned across its four plants by 2028, the Japanese 2-wheeler maker is positioning India as a strategic global hub, with exports to Europe, Africa and South America in focus.

Honda plans to deepen localisation and expand its global two-wheeler lineup in India.

Honda is expanding into premium and hobby motorcycles as customer preferences become more global.

HMSI plans to increase production capacity from 6.25 million to 8 million units by 2028, supporting domestic demand and exports.

Honda is pulling out all the stops to ensure India becomes a key global hub for its two-wheeler operations. According to Tsutsumu Otani, President & CEO of Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), the focus is now on its global lineup, which can be brought into the country. “For us, Make in India’ is an important criterion. It is not so easy to simply import CBUs. Localisation and our lineup expansion in parallel are very critical,” he told ET Auto. As a result, the objective of expanding the global lineup will be a step-by-step process. Advt

Resource circulation is also integral to this exercise, which requires the effective use of recycled steel and aluminium, as India has limited supplies of these materials. Against this backdrop, improving cost competitiveness and ensuring a good price for customers become critical. “We will be strengthening our Make in India approach. Localisation has to play a much bigger role,” reiterated Otani. Right now, for some components, the final assembly takes place in India, but individual parts are imported from Thailand, Japan or Europe In the past, India was more of a commuter market with not-so-many ‘hobby’ or big-displacement models.

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