Yamaha to boost its branding in rural market

India's one of the largest two-wheeler market leader, India Yamaha Motors is planning to boost its brand in rural market and to double the sales outlets in the next five years. The company is expected to launch its 2,000 new outlets across the country. In addition, Indian government is developing roads that easily connect to villages and improve the phone communication, electricity and health care. Presently, urban people are shifting to cars and the next strong demand for motorcycles could only happen in rural and semi-urban areas,"said Mayur Milak, an automobile industry analyst at Alchemy share & stock brokers in Mumbai. Currently, Hero Honda is the most popular motorcycle provider in the rural market for its strong branding. Now,Yamaha is targeting to boost its branding in the rural areas as soon as possible. According to the society of Indian automobile manufacturers," Industry-wide motorcycle sales growth of 26 percent to 7.3 million units by the last financial year ended. India Yamaha Motors sold 2,23,305 units of two-wheelers in the domestic market in the last fiscal year. While Hero Honda also sold 58 percent of the total units in the period and registered about 40 percent of its sales from rural market in march 2010 ended. Yamaha Motor is also planning to introduce its new premium products range - Yamaha SZ, Yamaha YZF R125 and Yamaha BWs in India. Yamaha Motor is also expected to launch its new premium bikes in the rural areas. On the other hand, Suzuki Motorcycles has recently launched two new massive superbikes in the Indian auto market such as Suzuki Bandit 1250S and Suzuki GSX-R1000.