Yamaha’s operations in India have overtaken Thailand, a traditional stronghold for the Japanese two-wheeler maker.
In its third quarter results declared in Japan last week, the company revealed that sales in India for the July-September period totalled 1.27 lakh units, comfortably ahead of Thailand’s 73,000 units. Between January and September this year, India has accounted for sales of 3.3 lakh two-wheelers, against Thailand’s 2.84 lakh units.
This is a remarkable turnaround from 2012 (July-Sept) when Yamaha’s India sales were 86,000 units, way behind Thailand’s tally of 1.37 lakh units. Likewise, for the nine month period (Jan-Sept) last year, Thailand had accounted for sales of 4.34 lakh two-wheelers, nearly twice India’s 2.47 lakh units.
It is quite likely that another important Yamaha market, Vietnam, may lose out to India next year if the current sales trend is any indication. For the July-Sept quarter of this calendar, Vietnam’s sales were 1.6 lakh units, slightly ahead of India’s 1.27 lakh. Yet, the difference was a lot wider in the same quarter of 2012 when India had reported 86,000 units against Vietnam’s 1.99 lakh.
And even while Vietnam is still ahead by a little over two lakh units for the nine months of this calendar (5.64 lakh versus 3.30 lakh), the gap is narrowing rapidly when examined in the backdrop of 2012 (6.33 lakh units of Vietnam vs India’s 2.47 lakh units).
It is only Indonesia which still rules the roost for Yamaha with sales of nearly six lakh two-wheelers for the July-Sept quarter and 1.87 million for the nine months of this calendar. Going by this momentum, the company will wrap up 2013 with sales in Indonesia comfortably crossing the 2.5 million unit mark.
Going forward, India could just end up being Yamaha’s most important market after Indonesia by 2015-16. The Indian market is large enough for the company to be upbeat about business prospects even though it has a larger market share in the ASEAN region. For this calendar, the combined two-wheeler volumes (from all companies) in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan are projected to be 13.07 million units, which are still lower than India’s 14 million units.
In its medium-term management presentation plan unveiled in Japan earlier this year, Yamaha drove home the point that India would grow significantly, while ASEAN (Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Taiwan) and Latin America (Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico) would see steady growth in contrast.
Yamaha has also made known that it is targeting one million units in India by 2016, inclusive of exports. It has kicked off its comeback story with the Ray scooter and is now on course to producing an inexpensive motorcycle to consolidate its hold in the commuter segment.
The quality and cost-competitiveness of India’s ancillary supplier base will also allow Yamaha to leverage this benefit for global sourcing. There is also a strong possibility of aggressive product development happening in India for countries like Africa which are tipped to be the growth engines of the future.