Royal Enfield to invest Rupees 65 crore to double capacity;launches 2 bik

New Delhi, Nov 4 : Eicher Motors Group company Royal Enfield today said it will invest more than Rupees 65 crore in order to double its manufacturing capacity from the present 50,000 units to one lakh units over the next three years, with the plans to increase exports by three-fold to 15 per cent.

''We will invest Rs 65 crore or sightly more than that in order to expand our manufacturing facilty to one lakh units in the course of next three years,'' Eicher Motors Managing Director (MD) and CEO Siddhartha Lal told reporters here.

The company has also already invested about Rs 65 crore in the last five years as part of its expansion plans, he informed.

Going forward, the company also plans to raise exports from ''the present five per cent to 10-15 per cent,'' he said, adding that the company has achieved a turnover of Rs 300 crore and registered an operating profit of more than 10 per cent.

About 95 per cent of Royal Enfield sales originate from India.

While the company sells about 4,500-5,000 units per month, it exports the remaining five per cent to countries such as UK, the US, Europe, Japan and Australia.

The motocycle maker today also launched two bikes, Classic 350 and Classic 500, priced at Rs 98,086 and Rs 1,24,918 (ex-showroom Delhi) respectively.

With the launch of these two bikes, the company plans to further expand its presence in the leisure segment in the country which is currently five per cent of the total bike segment, Mr Lal said.

The company hopes to sell the Classic 350 bikes more than the Classic 500 as far as the domestic market is concerned.

The Classic 500 is powered by a single cylinder 500 cc unit-construction engine (UCE) supported by electronic fuel injection.

It plans to use the UCE platform to design and manufacture a wide range of motorcycles over the next three years to introduce a variety of motorcycling geners such as classic sport and touring among others.

''This brand new engine will be the future platform for the company's bikes use the UCE platform to design and manufacture a wide range of motorcycles over the next three years to introduce a variety of motorcycling geners such as classic sport, touring,'' Mr Lal said.

After the launch of this new engine, the company will immediately phase out the Lean Burn Engine, but will take a look at the Classic (engine) in future.

Asked whether the company will use the electronic fuel injection on its other bikes, Mr Lal said though it can certainly be used in other models, ''pricing will be an issue.'' The company, however, does not have any plans of entering into the mass market segment, but ''will look into moving beyond the 500 cc segment in future,'' Mr Lal added.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
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