New Yamaha factory coming up near Chennai

Yamaha Motor India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Tamil Nadu to construct and operate a new two-wheeler factory. This will be Yamaha‘s third factory in the country apart from the ones at Surajpur (UP) and Faridabad (Haryana). 

The new factory will be constructed in an industrial park in Vallam Vadagal on the outskirts of Chennai and will have a total floor space of approximately 114,000 square metres. An estimated Rs 1.500 crore will be invested in the factory and its facilities. The factory will be operational by 2014, employing around 1800, with a capacity of producing four lakh units a year, which will be ramped up in stages. Yamaha hopes to achieve the full capacity of 18 lakh units by 2018, at which time the factory will employ around 6,500 people.

India Yamaha Motor CEO & Managing Director Hiroyuki Suzuki said, “We are very pleased with this development as this is in line with YMC’s medium-term management plans of enhancing local production levels to meet the demand growth in emerging markets such as India and their export markets. We expect the industry to attain 20 million units level by 2016 when we are targeting to sell two million units and achieve 10 per cent market share.”

Yamaha has reason for introducing this new plant; it has seen business grow phenomenally in the country. It sold around five lakh units in 2011, a growth of almost 36 per cent over 2010, and expects a growth of early 23 per cent in 2012. The Chennai plant will help Yamaha keep up with the rise in demand.

Yamaha has aggressive plans to bring down prices of its products by localising production and sourcing parts. The Chennai factory will be the first in the Yamaha Motor group to have a vendor park in its vicinity that will bring together the production operations of main external parts suppliers, thus enabling complete synchronisation of external supplier parts production as well.