Honda To Build Scooters For Yamaha

Now this a kind of partnership that no one saw coming. According to reports, Japanese rivals, Honda and Yamaha will join hands for two-wheeler production and development. This announcement has taken many by surprise as Yamaha and Honda are arch enemies in the Japanese domestic market and in 1980 both the manufacturers were engrossed in a cutthroat competition of upstaging each other, which was labelled as the “HY War.” But the scenario for both the two-wheeler giants isn’t the same as the domestic market for two-wheelers in Japan have shrunk by a massive 80 per cent.

The decline of sales has prompted both the rivals to team up. As part of the new agreement, Honda will manufacture scooters for Yamaha at its Kumamoto manufacturing facility. In other words, Honda will act as an OEM for Yamaha by 2018. This a win-win situation for both the companies as Yamaha currently exports around 50,000 scooters from its Taiwanese factory to supply the domestic market. On the other hand, Honda’s Kumamoto plant’s output in 2015 stood at 1,56,000 units, as opposed to its 2 lakh capacity. Honda and Yamaha have also partnered to develop a new 50cc scooter for the Japanese market, along with a range of new electric scooters. By jointly developing two-wheelers, both the manufacturers will be able to reduce the development cost of the product and also price the product aggressively. While this kind of partnership between two different bikemakers is unheard of, in the car industry many companies have joined hands to reduce development costs.