Honda Motorcycles Expand Production in Indonesia

After the Vietnam branch, Honda Motorcycle's joint venture company in Indonesia revealed plans of boosting its annual motorcycle production capacity to 3.5 million units before the end of this year, and then build a new plant with an annual production capacity of 500,000 units. The newly built plant is also expected to expand its total capacity to 4 million units before the end of 2011.

The Astra Honda Motor (AHM) says the new plant is scheduled to become operational in the latter half of 2011, following a total investment of approximately 760 billion Rupiah ($85 million). Also, according to a statement released by the company, AHM will increase the number of employees from 16,000 to 17,000 full time workers.

“In addition, AHM has enhanced its lineup of automatic transmission (AT) models by introducing three new AT models in August 2009, a new scooter model, Scoopy, in May 2010, and a new strategic global model scooter, PCX, in June 2010,” the statement reads.

“Moreover, AHM today introduced a new Cub-type AT model, Revo AT, which is equipped with the CV-Matic, Honda's newly developed automatic transmission for Cub-style scooters. AHM's sales plan for 2010 is approximately 3.21 million units, (up about 20% compared to 2009) and actual sales is expected to exceed the 2009 sales result (approximately 2.7 million units).”

The decision came as Indonesia is now the third largest motorcycle market in the world after China and India. AHM will also continue to further extend its lineup of new models in order to fulfill demand from a broader range of customers in the rapidly growing market.