Yamaha Motor’s two-wheeler operations in India are set to overtake Thailand this year with China just a tad ahead. Indonesia and Vietnam continue to be the Japanese automaker’s two leading markets.
These details form part of Yamaha’s half-yearly results, which were declared in Japan earlier this week.
While Thailand has seen a sharp fall in sales to 2.1 lakh units between January and June this year (2.97 lakh units in the same period of 2012), Yamaha’s India numbers, including exports, have jumped to 2.03 lakh (1.61 lakh) units.
In fact, the second quarter (April-June) sales of both countries are tied at 1.06 lakh units this year, a significant change from Q2 of 2012 when Thailand at 1.56 lakh units reported twice as much as India’s 78,000 units.
Largest market
Indonesia is Yamaha’s largest market with sales in the first half of this year totalling 1.27 million (1.31 million in H1 of 2012) bikes and scooters while Vietnam follows with 4.05 lakh (4.34 lakh) units. The company has projected wholesale numbers of 2.55 million units for Indonesia this year with Vietnam at 9.2 lakh units.
China is third in line with 5.2 lakh bikes and scooters with India just a notch behind with five lakh units. Thailand’s share this year is expected to be 4.2 lakh units while Taiwan trails further behind with 1.93 lakh units.
India has been seeing a steady increase since 2010 when Yamaha’s sales totalled 2.59 lakh units, going up to 3.43 lakh in 2011 and to 3.48 lakh units in 2012. Indonesia, its largest market, is in decline mode with sales at 3.3 million, 3.1 million and 2.4 million units over the last three years.
This is equally true for Thailand where Yamaha’s numbers fell from 5.06 lakh units in 2010 to 4.73 lakh the following year before recovering briefly to 5.5 lakh units in 2012. In contrast, Vietnam and Taiwan have been a lot steadier with Yamaha’s volumes (since 2010) averaging nine lakh and 1.8 lakh units respectively.
Internal projections
From the company’s internal projections, India is poised to report total sales of 14 million bikes and scooters in (calendar) 2013, which will make it the world’s largest two-wheeler market. China, which was the lead global player till recently, is expected to close the year with 11.62 million units.
India has strong companies such as Hero, Bajaj and Honda which are way ahead of Yamaha in the volumes game. Yet, with more and more young buyers entering the market and scooters seeing rapid growth, Yamaha is upbeat, especially with the response to the Ray (scooter).
The sheer size of the Indian market is good enough reason for the Japanese automaker to play the waiting game even though it has a larger presence in the ASEAN region. The combined two-wheeler numbers of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan in 2013 are forecast at 13.07 million units, which are lower than India’s standalone figure of 14 million units.
Africa thrust
The next big play for Yamaha will be Africa where India will again play a pivotal role. Hiroyuki Yanagi, President and CEO, recently told Business Line that the company was keen to develop the African market where almost all demand revolves around “business use” for the moment. “People here are slowly shifting to personal use but they require low-cost bikes. One product from India could perhaps be used for the African market,” he had said.
India has also been identified as one of Yamaha’s four bases for global procurement of components, the others being Japan, China and the ASEAN region. According to Yanagi, these are important regions because of their huge industrial size and presence of good suppliers. In Yamaha’s new global roadmap, Japan will cater to development of advanced technology and high value-added businesses while local adaptation can be done in regional outfits like India.