Honda sees huge potential in two-wheeler shared mobility market in India

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Limited sees huge potential in the shared mobility market in the two-wheeler segment in the country. India has a huge floating population and many people who do not feel the need to purchase a two wheeler are most likely to go in for shared mobility services in the country. The company feels that with more number of working women joining the workforce in the country the demand for shared mobility service is just going to grow further. The company recently tied up with a shared mobility company, DriveZy and is supplying 3,000 scooters to them for shared services in Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

“We have been in the shared mobility service ever since 2014. Our products are being preferred by shared mobility services across three type of operations such as aggregators, two-wheeler rentals and the digitised self-ride rentals. Scooters are preferred in the shared mobility space as they have a unisex appeal. I feel that the self-drive shared mobility will grow steadily in the times to come as the vehicles can be left at drop points and also can be picked up from different points across a city. The vehicles can also be tracked through a GPS system,” said Yadvinder Singh Guleria, senior vice president – Sales and Marketing, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Limited.

He further said that though there were no exact figures available for the two-wheeler shared mobility space in India, it was growing at a fast pace. “There are now more than 50 companies in this space in India. We are talking to some other companies in this space in other metros. We feel that this has huge potential in metro cities due to the huge distances that need to be covered. Moreover, if a person uses such a service, one does not need to worry about parking place and the vehicles are also insured. We are also in talks with other shared mobility players in other metro cities as well to supply our two-wheelers and hope to have deals in the future there as well,” added Guleria.

The company started working with around ten shared mobility players in 2014, and now has its vehicles running in over 30 shared mobility players operating in cities such as Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Jaipur, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Gurugram and Goa. In Gurugram, the company has supplied its motorcycles to a shared mobility player where it is being used for pick and drop facility.

Over the years, Honda has also increased its production capacity across its manufacturing plants in India and has a total capacity of around 64 lakh units in a year. Interestingly, the plant near Bengaluru has four production lines with a capacity of around 24 lakh units a year. From its manufacturing plants in India, Honda also exports vehicles to countries such as Colombia, Bangladesh, Srilanka and Nepal.