Minoru Kato, president & CEO of HMSI, (2nd from right) rolling out the 15th million Activa at the company's 4th factory at Ahmedabad in Gujarat.Mumbai: The second largest two-wheeler maker Honda on Thursday rolled out the 15 millionth (1.5 crore) Activa scooter, which already is the largest selling two-wheeler not only in the country, but across the globe.
A statement from Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) said the cumulative sales of 1.5 crore Activas since the launch in 2001, which is its flagship model and the volume grosser, is a landmark for the domestic two-wheeler industry as no other brand has been sold so much.
The Activa is the largest selling two-wheeler brand in the country grossing 27.59 lakh units in 2016-17, which is a lead of 2.09 lakh units over the nearest rival Splendor.
HMSI's newly-appointed president and chief executive Minoru Kato rolled out the landmark 1,50,00,000th Activa from its scooter-only assembly line at Vithalapur in Gujarat. The plant commissioned last year produces 1.2 million scooters annually and is the largest such a facility in the world.
For HMSI, which crossed 5 million sales mark in fiscal 2017, and has set a target of selling an additional 1 million this financial year, the Activa is the flagship brand that contributed 67 per cent of its a tad over 5 million volume last financial year.
The company will be adding another0.6 million capacity at an investment of over Rs 1,000 crore at its Karnataka facility, which will take Honda's overall capacity to 6.4 million by July.
Noting that India, too, is getting scooterised like other developed markets like Thailand and Indonesia, Kato said "In just seven years, the contribution of the scooter segment to total industry has doubled from 16 per cent in 2009-10 to 32 per cent in 2016-17.
"And leading this trend is the Activa which single-handedly re-activated the declining scooter segment way back in 2001 and become the No 1 selling two-wheeler both in India and the world," Kato said.
Launched in 2001, the Activa sold 55,000 units in its debut year. In just three years, it became the leader in automatic scooter segment and by 2012-13, Activa sales crossed the one million mark, but was still behind then largest selling Splendor from its former partner HeroMotorcorp by a siezable gap of 8.73 lakh units.
"The situation reversed in the next four years. Activa sales more than doubled from 12.05 lakh units in 2012-13 to 27.59 lakh units in 2016-17. For the first time in 17 years, Activa has overtaken all motorcycles to become the No 1 selling two-wheeler in 2016-17 and leads by a comfortable margin of 2.09 lakh units over Splendor now."
In June 2012, Activa breached the 50th lakh cumulative sale milestone and by July 2015, it became the first scooter to sell over 1 crore units.
Yadvinder Singh Guleria, senior vice-president for sales & marketing, attributed the phenomenal success and market leadership of the Activa to the continuous evolution ahead of times as it has set lot of industry first-- the first automatic scooter, combi-break system a decade before this is to be made mandatory by 2019 etc.
