NEW DELHI: Motorcycle maker TVS Motor Company on Thursday said it will invest Rs 200 crore by April next year to increase its production capacity to 28 lakh units.
The company also said it will set up a design centre in Indonesia where it has a manufacturing facility.
"There is an increasing demand and to meet that we are increasing our production capacity to 28 lakh units from the existing 21 lakh units per annum. It will entail an investment Rs 200 crore by April 2011," TVS Motor Company Chairman Venu Srinivasan told reporters on the sidelines of the SIAM summit here.
He said the company expects to sell 18 lakh of two wheelers in the domestic market and export 2.5 lakh units this year.
On the three-wheeler front, the company expects sales of 50,000 units.
Commenting on the overseas operation, Srinivasan said TVS expects its Indonesian arm to break even by next year. "By next year we should have a design center there," he said.
He also said TVS plans to make Brazil, where it has an assembly unit, to be the hub for the Latin American market.
"We have a capacity of assembling 50,000 units in Brazil per year. We want this to be the hub of Latin America and supply to countries like Columbia, which is an interesting market," Srinivasan said.
The company assembles its motor cycle 'Apache' in Brazil right now. He also said the company is looking to increase export to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and ASEAN countries.
TVS Motor reported a rise of 14.80 per cent in its total two-wheeler sales at 15,21,912 units in the last fiscal year.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
TVS motors to invest 200 cr on capacity expansion
Friday, August 13, 2010
TVS MOTORS TO RE-START TWIN SPARK-PLUG FLAME
Mr Venu Srinivasan,Chairman, TVS Motor Company, during the launch of the Flame (file photo).
M Ramesh
Chennai, Aug.12
TVS Motor Company will bring back the Flame, the 125 cc motorcycle that was at the centre of a patent litigation between the company and Bajaj Auto two years ago.
TVS Motor's Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Venu Srinivasan, told Business Line on Tuesday that the company has been selling “small volumes” of the Flame.
TVS Motor is now in the process of switching back to the ‘twin spark-plug' version of the motorcycle. Production is set to start soon.
In 2008, rival two-wheeler manufacturer Bajaj Auto Ltd sued TVS Motor claiming “patent infringement”, holding that the Flame motorcycle had a twin spark plug — a feature that Bajaj said it owned the patent for.
Legal battle
In the the first round of the legal battle, the Madras High Court restrained TVS Motor from selling motorcycles with twin spark-plugs.
TVS won in its appeal in the Supreme Court, but in the meantime, the company had begun selling the Flame motorcycle with single spark-plug.
Following the favourable Supreme Court judgment of September last year, TVS Motor announced the re-launch of twin spark-plug Flame.
Making a point
Perhaps because the market in 2009 was rather lacklustre, it looked like TVS Motor's interest was more to make a point in the market that it had won the patent litigation, and therefore was above reproach.
The company now plans to bring back the Flame with a bang.
“We are clearing the stocks of the single spark-plug version. Production of twin spark-plug Flame will begin this month,” he said.
The Flame will occupy a key slot in TVS Motor's product portfolio.
The company has a range of products in the 100 cc segment (Star, Max 100). Last year, it launched the 110 cc Jive.
As of now, the Jive is selling around 8,000 units a month and Mr Srinivasan is confident of ramping it up to 12,000 by September and to 15,000 during the ‘season' (October-November).
Mopeds are selling well, too, which is a bit of a surprise because it was generally believed that the tiny two-wheeler was a ‘sunset' product.
This year, TVS Motor's moped sales will be up at least 20 per cent.
The company has budgeted to sell 650,000 mopeds this year.
Outside South
“The entire growth of 20 per cent is coming from outside South,” Mr Srinivasan said. This is against the widespread belief that mopeds are a ‘southern phenomenon'.
All of a sudden, the mopeds market seems to have picked up in the North and West.
Mr Srinivasan pointed out that the need for the vehicle was common across the country. “It is a doodh-walla, subzi-walla vehicle.”
Marketing
He felt that if the vehicle had not sold well outside the South earlier, it was more due to less-than-adequate marketing.
To a question, he said that mopeds may be lower-margin vehicles, but their production does occupy significant capacities because mopeds' production lines are unique.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Joshua wins opening round of INRC
Coimbatore, Aug 1 (PTI)
Pramod Joshua of Team TVS Racing began the season with a bang, by winning the opening round of the MAK Indian National Racing Championship for Bikes, making it a hat-trick of wins here, today. Riding on a TVS Apache, the Bangalore rider Joshua beat teammate and reigning champion by one min 2 seconds in 130 to 165 CC class in Group B 4 stroke, at the dust track at Kethanur, about 45 km from here. Pradeep H K, also of TVS Racing, was third. Local star, Venu Ramesh Kumar, riding a Hero Honda won the 210 to 260 cc Class in Group B 4 stroke to complete a hat-trick here. Second spot went to Chetan Ganapathy. In the Group B 2-stroke, Asad Khan and R Nataraj won in the upto 130 cc and 165 CC class respectively. In group D 4 stroke Kamalakannan beat Sandesh in the upto 130 CC class, while Sarath Kumar finished first, pushing R Raja an Royan Peter second and third in the upto 165 CC category.