Honda keen to keep Thailand as bike output base despite slump

Thai Honda Manufacturing Co, a division of Honda Motor Co, yesterday celebrated cumulative production of 50 million motorcycles and power products in the Kingdom during its 50-year presence here. Half of those the 50 million units are motorcycles and half power products.

Noriaki Abe, president and chief executive of Asian Honda Motor Co, said the Thai motorcycle market had been declining by 5 per cent in each of the past three years.

He said that during the 2013 fiscal year (April 2012 to March 2013), Honda produced 1.675 million motorcycles (1.518 million for the domestic market and 157,000 for export), but the following year production dropped to 1.496 million (1.364 million domestic and 132,000 export).

For the current fiscal year, Honda plans to raise production slightly to 1.531 million (1.38 million domestic and 151,000 export).

From April to last month, domestic production reached 768,000 units, down from 926,000 units during the corresponding period a year earlier, while exports reached 67,700 units, down from 91,000 units, Abe said.

He said domestic motorcycle sales were affected by political and economic factors, and had not stabilised yet.

“Our policy is to offer more new products that suit the Thai market, and we don’t expect any major problems from the market shrinkage.” 

He noted that demand for motorcycles here was present all year, unlike colder markets such as Europe.

“Despite the declining market, AP Honda Co Ltd, which is our distributor, can create growth opportunities by choosing the right products for the market and quickly responding to new trends,” he said.

Abe said Thailand could serve as Honda’s export base for multipurpose motorcycles ahead of the full implementation of the Asean Economic Community next year. 

Thailand is the fourth-largest production base for Honda in Asia after Indonesia, India and Vietnam.

“Presently our manufacturing bases in each Asean country produce different models that suit each market specifically, and this will stay the same,” he said. “We are now focusing on offering multipurpose motorcycles for the Thai market, but we also want to export [them] to other Asean markets as well. If they gain popularity in overseas markets, then we could increase the production at the Thai plant.”