I N D I A ’ S N O . 1 M A G A Z I N E F O R A U T O M O T I V E N E W S , V I E W S & A N A LY S I S
Auto Monitor www.a mo n l i n e .i n
26 November 2012
SPECIAL
EAST INDIA
Pg 12-16
NEWS IN BRIEF Fat Bob for `12.8 lakh Our Bureau New Delhi
H
arley Davidson has added sixth product- Fat Bob in its CKD portfolio in India. The cruiser bike will be assembled at Bawal plant in Haryana. The motorcycle, powered by a 1,585 cc engine with a six-speed transmission is priced at `12.8 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). The bike is equipped with a fuel tank capacity of 18.8 litres.
“The introduction of the Fat Bob, our newest addition to our line-up available through CKD, is further proof of our ability to move ahead of the marketplace by listening to our customers,” said MD, Harley-Davidson India, Anoop Prakash. The new bike will be available with an air cooled, twin cam engine delivering 126 N-m @ 3500 rpm of peak torque. The Bawal plant is only assembly plant outside the US, apart from Brazil. The company started selling bikes in 2010 and it expects to sell close to 2,000 units this year, double the number it sold in 2011. Currently, the company sells 13 models through nine dealerships across the country.
DATA MONITOR Top 5 3W makers Company
Oct-11
Oct-12
Change
BAL
18,823
23,640 25.59%
Piaggio
17,984
18,081
0.54%
M&M
6,332
6,973
10.12%
ATUL AUTO
2,520
3,330
32.14%
Scooters Ind
1,708
1,615
-5.44%
Top 5 3W-Exporters Company
Oct-11
Oct-12
BAL
25,368
26,676 5.16%
Change
TVS
2,010
2,460
22.39%
Piaggio
1,979
1,570
-20.67%
M&M
234
87
-62.82%
Force Motors
42
42
0.00%
* Source: SIAM/ ** Excluding exports/ *** all sub segments considered/ ^ excluding MRPL
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INTERVIEW “WE WANT TO BE NUMBER ONE IN SALES BUT NOT FOR ANY PRICE”
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Pg 08
Philipp von Sahr, President, BMW India
Metaldyne bags orders from VECV, Tata Motors Nabeel A Khan New Delhi
J
amshedpur-based NVH and fly wheels manufacturer Metaldyne India has bagged fresh orders worth `25 crore from Tata Motors and Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicle (VECV) in the face of slowing growth and uncertain demand environment. The new product to be supplied to VECV will be vibration dampers for the commercial vehicle manufacturer’s European and Indian application. Tata Motor has given new orders for axle components. Tata Motors is the company’s biggest customer in India and the supply of the new component will start by December while for VECV, the products are still under approval. After the approval the Metaldyne will have a slight ramp up in production by next year and from mid 2013 regular supply to VECV will begin. In all these new arrangements, East India based component makers has invested around `five crore. The company has been impacted by the current sluggish market trend and experienced a significant fall in its sales in the third
The company’s capacity utilisation has dropped to around 40 percent in recent months compared to 70 percent earlier quarter of this fiscal. Metaldyne India is a joint venture between American component maker Metaldyne and Jamshedpurbased Arush Group. Metaldyne owns majority 51 percent stake while Sanjay Sabherwal owned Arush Group owns the remaining stake in the company. The company’s total turnover last fiscal was around `85 crore. In addition to orders from VECV and Tata Motors, it has bagged another supply deal with a car maker and a truck manufacturer to supply vibration dampener. It already supplies dampers to Nissan. The company’s capacity utilisation has dropped to around 40 percent in recent months compared to 70 percent earlier and is continuing to drop due to lacklustre performance of the
Sanjay Sabherwal, Managing Director, Metaldyne India
commercial vehicle segment. “Idle capacity cannot be immediately utilised as the changeover is not possible in a short time. Apart from launching new products, we are looking at every single process, and doing a lot of introspection and trying to improve our processes and looking at weakness and trying to strengthen them so that when the time improves we are in a better place to come back to form,” said Managing Director, Metaldyne India, Sanjay Sabherwal. The company which has 15 percent
of total business coming from Passenger Vehicle segment, is now also looking at increasing its business here. Metaldyne is one of the largest producer of fly wheels for heavy and medium commercial vehicle applications in India with 25,000 units a month production capacity. It also exports components produced at Jamshedpur plant to the various international markets including US, UK, Japan and Thailand and exports contributes around 40 percent of its total revenue.
Bridgestone mulls entry into 2-wheeler segment Nabeel A Khan & Jagdev Kalsi New Delhi
B
ridgestone India is evaluating entry in the two wheeler tyre market in the long term considering the high volumes and continuous growth in the segment. The company already sells non-nylon based twowheeler tyres outside India for higher capacity motorcycles. Bridgestone however perceives growth in two wheeler segment in India and believes it to be the next natural progression for itself. “Two-wheeler market in India is huge and we will look forward to come into it. We are studying what kind of possibility can Indian two wheeler market offer and offer solutions accordingly,” said Managing Director, Bridgestone India Pvt Ltd, H
Tanigawa. According to Tanigawa none of the Bridgestone India’s facilities can support manufacturing of two-wheeler tyres and the company will not import two -wheeler tyres owing to the high import duties. It is however focusing on increasing sales shops in rural India like its competitors. Tanigawa added, “Our strategy will be to first set up sales shops in rural India and small cities with a friendly staff and better services. We want to satisfy the customers to buy Bridgestone tyres even at a relative premium price. We will be expanding network.” He further hinted at manufacturing tyres for agricultural market after it enters the two-wheeler arena.
Capacity Expansion Bridgestone has recently invested `2,600 crore in its Pune plant that has an installed
Photograph: Jagdev Kalsi
Vol. 12 No. 40
H Tanigawa, MD, Bridgestone India
capacity of 30,000 tyres per day. Bridgestone is looking to manufacture 10,000 tyres per day in this plant by January 2013 and will further increase the capacity to reduce imports. The Pune plant will cater to the replacement market as well as the OEMs while the company’s second plant in Indore with a production of 15,000 tyres per day will
continue to cater to the commercial vehicle market. Speaking on imports and demand, Tanigawa further added, “We are under the process of expanding our capacity to cater to different market segments. The Indore plant capacity is around 15,000 tyres per day. If the new plant gets fully operational then we can think of stopping imports.” He also said that Bridgestone wants to cut down its exports to zero within five years time and will consider more investment if demand increases. The company currently churns out around 450,000 tyres from its two plants while it has demand of around two million tyres per month. With imports accounting for more than 75 percent of the total demand, Bridgestone has set its focus on reducing the company’s imports by utilising its plants to their maximum.