Hero Moto to go premium, spend Rs 4,500 crore – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Hero MotoCorp has decided to go on an overdrive and lined up investments of over Rs 4,500 crore over the next three years. The company, known more for mass-commuter products, has started to build up a premium play with own products and those co-developed with Harley-Davidson. These would be sold from an all-new upmarket retail concept, beyond its existing stores.
The company has started work on the new retail format, which will house powerful and premium bikes, including fresh models such as Xtreme, Karizma, and those co-developed with HarleyDavidson, new CEO Niran-jan Gupta told TOI.
Gupta, who had been CFO of the company before bagging the top role, said Hero Moto not only wants to consolidate its presence in volume-heavy commuter categories — mainstay of its business at present — but also aims to build a play in premium segment that is currently dominated by Royal Enfieldand to some extent by Bajaj Auto and Yamaha.
Gupta added that he was inspired by turnaround scripted by other homegrown Indian brands, such as Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Motors, which have grown swiftly over past few years and given a tough fight to well-heeled international car brands. “… if you look at Tataand Mahindra, they’ve established in the last five years that commuter players can become premium… that’s a very big success story. ”
The Hero Moto CEO said cracking the premium market is more of an opportunity rather than a challenge. “If everything was working well, then I would struggle to figure out what needs to be done. To me, any challenge is an opportunity. In premium, we simply did not have products for the market. If you don’t have products, what will they buy?. . . This year, we will see the maximum number of premium launches that Hero has ever done in its history. This will help us get established as a credible premium player. ”