Yamaha Motor saw a sharp drop in two-wheeler sales in Indonesia for the first quarter of this calendar. The results were declared in Japan recently. For the January-March period, Yamaha’s numbers in Indonesia totalled 4.4 lakh units, down from 6.1 lakh units in the same time last year. The company has attributed this to ‘effects of a drop in total demand’ Thailand was, however, up to 60,000 two-wheelers compared to 40,000 units last year. Vietnam and Malaysia/Philippines stayed flat at 1.5 lakh and 70,000 units each.

Consequently, sales in the ASEAN region totalled 7.2 lakh units, a significant drop from 8.8 lakh units in the first quarter of 2014. This was largely due to the setback in Indonesia which is also Yamaha’s biggest two-wheeler market globally and tipped to do sales of over 2.5 million units in 2015. This means that there would be a lot of catching up to do in terms of gaining numbers over the next three quarters.

India, which is projected to head Yamaha’s ranking list by 2020, reported sales of 1.6 lakh units in the Jan-March period which was pretty much at par with last year’s levels. Exports accounted for a little over 40,000 units and this component could increase in the coming years especially when shipments from India begin heading out aggressively to Africa. Over the next three years, Yamaha has targeted production of 2.8 million units from its two facilities in India, of which Chennai will take a larger share of 1.8 million units.

The product mix will comprise scooters and motorcycles even while the most awaited offering is the world’s most affordable hike scheduled to roll out of the Chennai plant by 2017.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW