Honda Cars India (HCI), the completely owned domestic subsidiary of Honda Motor Company, has delivered its first consignment of 390 units comprising locally made Brio hatchback to South Africa. The company said that it may transform its Noida facility into an export hub for its some of the flagship models.
On this, the President and Chief Executive of HCI, Hironori Kanayama quoted, “The expansion of our export business is the first step towards developing India as another hub for export of certain models. I think this market has a lot of potential to be an export hub for us.”
Interestingly, the domestically made Brio happens to be the first car which has been exported to South Africa from the stables of Honda India and it is believed that the first batch of 390 units is a significant milestone for the auto maker. He further added, “We will export over 1,600 Brios to South Africa and SADC (South African Development Community) countries by next March.”
Senior Vice President of the company, Jnaneswar Sen said that the SADC bloc will include Kenya, Mauritius, Tanzania and the Seychelles. He further said that the Brio car rolled out from the company’s Noida plant has almost 90 per cent localisation.
During the last 14 years, the auto maker has shipped a total of 1,028 units to the Saarc region, including the models like City, Jazz and Accord. The name of Brio has been now added to the export portfolio of Honda India. Reportedly, the model will be put to sale in early December in South Africa and will be offered by only Honda Motor Southern Africa dealers.
Speaking on the sidelines, Sen said that the company is also planning to introduce an entry-level sedan based on the manufacturing platform of Brio and a new premium model of CRV in the next fiscal. He quoted, “We are developing entry level sedan from the Brio platform with both petrol and diesel variants. A new CRV will also be launched next fiscal.”
