The Hero Honda story began with a simple vision – the vision of a mobile and an empowered India, powered by Hero Honda. This vision was driven by Hero Honda’s commitment to customer, quality and excellence, and while doing so, maintain the highest standards of ethics and societal responsibilities. Twenty five years and 25 million two wheelers later, Hero Honda is closer to fulfilling this dream. This vision is the driving force behind everything that we do at Hero Honda. We understood that the fastest way to turn that dream into a reality is by remaining focused on that vision.
There were many unknowns but we kept faith, and today, Hero Honda has been the largest two wheeler company in the world for eight consecutive years. Our growth has kept compounding. The company crossed the ten million unit milestone over a 19-year span. In the new millennium, Hero Honda has scaled this to 15 million units in just five years! In fact, during the year in review, Hero Honda sold more two wheelers than the second, third and fourth placed two-wheeler company put together. With Hero Honda, the domestic two wheeler market was able to show positive growth during the year in review. Without Hero Honda, the domestic market would have actually shrunk.
Over the course of two and a half decades, and three successive joint venture agreements later, both partners have fine-tuned and perfected their roles as joint venture partners. What the two partners did was something quite basic. They simply stuck to their respective strengths. As one of the world’s technology leaders in the automotive sector, Honda has been able to consistently provide technical know-how, design specifications and R&D innovations. This has led to the development of world class, value – for- money motorcycles and scooters for the Indian market. On its part, the Hero Group has taken on the singular and onerous responsibility of creating world-class manufacturing facilities with robust processes, building the supply chain, setting up an extensive distribution networks and providing insights into the mind of the Indian customer. Since both partners continue to focus on their respective strengths, they have been able to complement each other. In the process, Hero Honda is recognized today as one of the most successful joint ventures in the world. It is therefore no surprise that there are more Hero Honda bikes on this country’s roads than the total population of some European countries
put together!
The company’s meteoric growth in the two-wheeler market in India stems from an intrinsic ability to reach out and come closer to its customers, with every passing year. Hero Honda’s bikes are sold and serviced through a network of over 3500 customer touch points, comprising a mix of dealers, service centres and stockists located across rural and urban India. Hero Honda has built two world-class manufacturing facilities at Dharuhera and Gurgaon in Haryana, and its third and most sophisticated plant at Haridwar has just completed a full year of operations. It is difficult to imagine that all this has happened in the span of just two and a half decades!
The best is yet to come. During the year in review, Hero Honda powered its way in a market that, for all practical purposes, was feeling the full effects of the economic slowdown in India. With an economic recovery now clearly on the cards, Hero Honda is all set to ride into another summit. As Brijmohan Lall Munjal, the Chairman, Hero Honda Motors succinctly puts it, “We pioneered India’s two wheeler industry, we’ve steered it through difficult times; now it is our responsibility to set the pace again.”