The iconic US cult bike maker Harley Davidson is set to enter Indian markets tomorrow, two years after it was first granted permission to start operations.
For leisure biking enthusiasts, the arrival of Harley-Davidson in India is great news.
After almost two years of on again-off again India plans, this iconic American bike brand is finally setting up a sales and marketing office in India. But the bikes won’t come cheap, since import duties will make them sell for at least twice the asking price in the United States.
An entry-level Harley costs around $7,000 in the US which means none of the Harleys would come for less than $14,000, or about Rs 7 lakh, in India. Anoop Prakash has been appointed as the MD of Indian operations and the first dealerships would come up by the first half of 2010 in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ludhiana and Chandigarh.
Harley-Davidson was first granted permission to start operations in India in 2007 but the company cited high import tariffs to call off an entry. Even the popular “mangoes for bikes” diplomacy didn’t quite work. So, what has changed between now and 2010?
“Given the rapid development of India’s economy and physical infrastructure, this is exactly the right time to bring come here. Two things worked in our favour:
development of the heavyweight bike segment with many of our competitors coming in and increasing demand pull for leisure bikes,” Harley-Davidson Motor Company’s President and COO Matthew Levatich said.
Harley has a range of 43 models in the home market and plans to bring 12-15 of these to India next year but there are no immediate plans of setting up an assembly operation in the country. Harley makes all its bikes at two factories in the US but has small assembly operations across Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil and Indonesia. In China, it has three dealerships.
With Harley bikes will come the famous Harley merchandise, apparel, riding gear etc, and Anoop Prakash says that the cruisers would be customizable for individual preferences.
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