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K. Giriprakash

Bangalore, Aug. 15 After a series of top-level exits and slide in sales, motorcycle maker Yamaha Motor has restructured its Indian operations as well as changed its marketing strategy.

The company has also decided to do away with giving discounts on motorcycles to push sales and has brought its auto-finance arm to India to finance purchase of its products.

India Yamaha Motor head for sales and marketing, Mr Pankaj Dubey, told Business Line that the company has restructured Indian operations as well as integrated various operations to create a focused approach towards increasing sales.

“There were problems earlier. But now everything is geared towards serving the customers,” he said. Right from manufacturing to assembly, the focus is on customers, he said.

Mr Dubey said Yamaha has brought its auto-finance arm, Bussan Auto finance, which will fully finance the customers in purchasing the company’s motor cycles.

“We will finance the purchases at extremely competitive rates,” he said. Some of the private sector banks in the country have toughened norms and increased interest rate for two wheelers purchase.

This has led to a major slide in sales of two wheelers in the country.

During 2007-08, two wheelers sales in the country declined nearly 8 per cent.

Mr Dubey said Yamaha expects to increase its share in the two-wheeler market to about 10 per cent by 2010 or 8 lakh units from the current level of about 2.6 per cent which is about 1.6 lakh units. Early this year, Yamaha had announced an investment of around Rs 800 crore in its Indian operations which includes plants in Surajpur in Uttar Pradesh and Faridabad in Haryana.

It also entered into an agreement with Mitsui & Co. to become a joint investor in India Yamaha Motor Pvt Ltd.

Yamaha’s product portfolio in India includes MT01 (1670 cc), YZF-R1 (998 cc), YZF-R15 (150 cc), Gladiator SS & RS (125 cc), Gladiator Graffiti (125cc), G5 (106 cc), Alba (106 cc) and Crux (106 cc).

More Stories on : Restructuring | Two/Three Wheelers

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