I have got an interesting piece of news to share with you, our readers. I had posted a write- up yesterday titled ‘Hero Honda is Likely to be Hero Moto’ where I mentioned Hero Honda’s plan for a name change and an all new re-branding exercise.
ET Now channel has reported that Honda Motorcycles and scooter India private limited, HMSI, the wholly owned Indian subsidiary of Honda Motor Company Limited, Japan are trying to pull many Hero Honda dealers to their side.
They are trying to convince as many dealers as they can. This is been done after the split between Munjal’s Hero group from Japan’s Honda. Honda is trying to maximize the dealers’ profit margin to as much as double of what they are getting from Hero Honda, sources say.
Honda has realized the fact that the reason for Hero Honda’s dominance in Indian motorcycle market is its vast dealership network spread across the length and breadth of Indian sub-continent. Presently, the world’s largest two wheeler manufacturer – Hero Honda has around 4500 dealers for its brand, comprising of bikes and scooters. On the contrary, HMSI has only around 800 dealers all over India. But, it has plans to expand rapidly at the rate of 100 showrooms every year.
Also, since the time has come for Honda to directly compete with Hero Moto (as Hero Honda is likely to be called in the near future), HMSI is also likely to concentrate the mass market with the launch of a 100cc commuter bike in a short span of time.
While Hero Honda has allocated 200 crores of Rupees for its new re-branding strategy, we have to wait and see what Honda is upto to uplift its current position. But, all that I wish at this point of time is that Honda concentrates on avoiding delay period (though a new plant is getting ready for Honda in Rajastan) and work on what is to be done on improving customer’s satisfaction rather than trying to finalize deals with Hero Honda dealers.
Regards,
M.Naren.
Author – BikeAdvice.in
