Yamaha Motor Thailand, a subsidiary company of Yamaha Motor Corporation in Thailand is planning to form a joint venture in Burma with the help of a group of investors. Yamaha Motor Thailand decision comes in response to Burma’s new policy to attract overseas investment. The company is in discussion with its parent company Yamaha Motor Corporation over its business strategy involving production, distribution and prospect for Burma. The company expects to produce 10,000 motorcycles in the first year of operation.
Yamaha Thailand has been authorized to take care of Laos and Combodia too. The company has successfully sold 20,000 units in Comboida 10,000 units in Laos last year. The company is now aiming to explore the market of Burma. Burma has seen spike in motorcycle sales and Yamaha wants to capture larger pie of sales. Yamaha has projected aggressive growth plan for the ASEAN (Association of South East Asia Nation) region in the year 2012, it is going to launch several new products and expand its dealer base in ASEAN region. For example it aims to increase its market share in Thailand to 35% by launching new models and increasing dealer number to 653 in the current year.
Last year there were total 60 million motorcycles sold worldwide. Yamaha expects that the global motorcycle market to reach 80 million units by the year 2020. The major growth will come from the Asian region which includes countries like China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam etc. Yamaha expects to reach 10 million units sales by 2015.
-Mahavir Kothari
