Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI), a Joint Venture between Honda Motors of Japan and Siel Ltd. India, has planned to make India an export hub for its compact car Brio, from its Tapukara plant in Rajasthan to the neighbours at Nepal and Bhutan from next fiscal year. The JV already exports to Indonesia and Malaysia a few components of Brio, a low priced compact that rivals Maruti suzuki’s Wagon R, Hyundai’s i10 and the likes. At the Brio launch, HSCI director of marketing, Seki Inaba, said, “We are looking to achieve localisation of Brio from the present level of 80 percent to 90 percent by the end of this fiscal (year). This would bring down the cost of production. However, it doesn’t mean we will reduce the price.”
The 1200 cc car comes in 4 variants and 6 colours with a asking price between INR 4.04 lakhs and INR 5.18 lakhs (prices ex showroom, Hyderabad).
Ineba mentioned that the company was expecting Brio’s volumes to be in line with its ‘City’ sedan.
In Aug. 2011, HSCI sold 5000 units of City and during the last fiscal year the company has sold a total of 60000 units from its line up of cars.
“The Rajasthan plant has an installed capacity of 100,000 units. We should be able to fully utilise the capacity by end of Q1 of 2012.” He said, adding the company was expanding its dealership web by making the dealerships reach a total of 143 in 91 cities by this year end.
With Honda expecting to things becoming better by the end of the year to negate the damages by the Tsunami that hit Japan sometime earlier, Honda is well set to make India an export hub for its small car that can be expected to have an appeal in aforementioned neighbouring countries.