Royal Enfield, the Chennai-based maker of the iconic ‘Bullet’, on Thursday said the waiting period for its bikes would come down from present 6-8 months once its second plant at Oragadam near Chennai was commissioned by first quarter of 2013.

The Oragadam plant would have a production capacity of 1.5 lakh units per annum by March 2013, Royal Enfield Chief Executive Officer Venki Padmanabhan said here.

He was speaking to reporters at the launch of Royal Enfield’s Thunderbird model in two variants — 500 cc and 350 cc — in the Bangalore market.

Royal Enfield Senior Vice-President (Sales and Marketing) Shaji Koshy said the demand for the company products is very high in Karnataka.

In 2011, the company’s sales in the state grew by almost 80 per cent over 2010, Koshy said.

“This year we have already registered a growth of 70 per cent over the average monthly sales volume of 2011. To keep up with the growing demand we have expanded our footprints aggressively and we have 16 dealers across Karnataka,” he added.

“So far we have sold 75,000 bikes and this fiscal we hope to cross one lakh sales figures,” Padmanabhan said.

Padmanabhan also announced the company’s entry into the biking accessories market with a slew of apparel and biking gadgets, including leather and nylon jackets, helmets and gloves.

The new Thunderbird, targeted at the highway cruising buffs, is priced at Rs 1,86,622 (on road Bangalore for the 500 cc) and Rs 1,46,466 (350 cc), he said.

On exports, he said US is the biggest market for Royal Enfield, adding the brand is also sold in Australia, European and Latin American countries.

The first Thunderbird was launched in 2002 and around 1,000 units of the 350-cc model are sold a month, Padmanabhan said.

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