Royal Enfield has big plans, and this week, they’re one step closer to achieving those goals.
While Royal Enfield is dominant on its home turf in India, they want to be a big name around the world. They’re hoping to sell 500,000 motorcycles a year around the globe, but their old manufacturing facility wouldn’t allow that. They hit a record-setting pace of 12,000 bikes at that factory this March, but they still couldn’t meet demand.
But this week, they opened their new factory, and they’re hoping things are going to change. This year, they’re hoping to build 175,000 bikes between both plants, then 250,000 between both plants in 2014.
Said company bigwig Mr Siddhartha Lal: “The ability to increase capacity fast and superior quality of motorcycles is a crucial step for Royal Enfield towards meeting our global ambitions. While we are adding new models and new dealerships in the Indian market which is fueling our growth, we are also working on building our presence globally. Higher investments into brand and distribution, as well as new products that are very appealing to international markets are going to be key for us to achieve global leadership in the mid-size motorcycle category.”
[…] course, the single biggest reason for Royal Enfield’s sales boom is their increased manufacturing capacity; in previous years, the company had long waiting lists for new bikes. Now they’re able to […]
Well, I like the Bullet[s] and Classics [with the new engine] just fine,and ~7000-8000 Canuck bucks isn’t bad.
The old bugaboo about buying some thing not a rice burner is still there…a lack of local dealers.
Totallyscooters.ca even in the heart of Toronto, is gone, VespaBurlington is gone….hence no Vespa or Piaggio for the Niagara Peninsula. V-Twin cycle in Niagara Falls is gone, and I don’t think I’d want to go as far as Oakville for an Enfield, which is odd since the previous importer was in Niagara Falls. Even Urals are absent here, Peterborough being the closest. It only gets worse the farther you get from the centre of Ontario, leaving most with only the choice of rice burners to ride. I’ll leave the one big Harley dealer here to those with more money than brains. Besides after 35 years of riding small and big bikes, my preference is for the medium-size,
half-litre to 650cc and the bike I’ve missed the most is that old 1969 Honda Scrambler [yep, a ‘rice burner’]
based on the old CB450. Plenty of power for 400 series highways, yet can still go through a ditch or on a trail.
Lotsa fun on that little bike! 🙂 I also wished I would have bought a Yamaha XS-650 before they stopped making them[still had a kickstarter] I erroneously thought with that tough little engine that could that they would just keep making them, however, they obviously didn’t please people like the posters above, pimple-poppers and acne-heads that wanted more of a rush, rather than be satisfied with an easy ride that the XS was.
If they want to be #1, then they’re going to have to build gooder. faster and cheaper.
They ain’t there yet (IMHO)…
You’re probably right, TK4, but the new cafe racer AKA Continental GT sure looked good to my eyes at the Tokyo Motorcycle Show. It was definitely a significant improvement from anything else in their lineup.
trane – its an improvement definitely BUT the quality, styling and performance of the product doesn’t match up to the pricing. If they plan on going head-to-head with the Japanese and the Europeans, then they have to fix that. I wish them well.
Yeah, the pricing is a couple of grand optimistic given the product. Let’s hope that management realizes this. While the current production scale has them barely meeting demand, ramping up production by a hundred thousand-plus units will surely have stuff rotting on the showroom floor at these prices.