Honda Motorcycle and Scooters India (HMSI) is planning to come up with a 100cc motorcycle to compete head on with the king of the 100cc segment, the Hero Splendor. The 100cc motorcycle from Honda is currently under development and is expected to roll out within a few months to expand the company’s Dream series of mass market bikes to take on its former partner Hero MotoCorp’s Splendor family. The upcoming Splendor rival is codenamed as K23, which will be based on the same platform used by the Dream Yuga motorcycle.
According to Honda officials involved in the development, the new 100cc bike is the value-engineered version of the Dream Yuga and it will be priced aggressively to hit the Splendor segment. The manufacturer is striving to get higher fuel economy from the bike as the USP. Honda has a target to sell 6 lakh units of the upcoming 100cc bike in FY14 and the combined sales of the Dream Yuga and the soon-to-be launched bike is targeted to be 12 lakh units.
Honda already has a target of selling 39.30 lakh units in FY14 and will be launching one new product every quarter. The Japanese automaker had announced earlier that they are targeting to become the top 2-wheeler manufacturer in India in 2020 but recently on the launch event of the CB Trigger bike, they believe that the number one spot can be achieved much before 2020, around 2015-16. If Honda achieves the targeted sales, it is expected to eat up significant market share from Hero MotoCorp. With the expansion of the Dream series budget motorcycles, Honda can expect big volumes.
Source – EconomicTimes
