Royal Enfield has posted its best-ever performance in the first quarter of 2016 with the Indian company selling a total of 148,185 motorcycles 59.6% growth on the same period last year.
The result comes as Royal Enfield has launched their very first ground-up designed motorcycle, the Himalayan, with the machine extremely well received, a fact reflected in a strong order book.
But Royal Enfield isn’t stopping there. “Royal Enfield has been investing in building strong foundations across all areas of its business,” the company’s CEO Mr Siddhartha Lal. “We will be investing ₹600 crores (USD122 million) towards product development, setting up technical centres in the UK and India, enhancing our manufacturing capacity and market development activities across geographies.
The UK tech centre will be operational by the latter half of FY2016-17 while the Chennai tech centre will be operational by 2017-18. Additionally, with a view to developing exciting and mold-breaking mid-sized motorcycles, Royal Enfield acquired Harris Performance, a motorcycle engineering and design firm based in UK in May 2015.
“In FY2016-17, we plan to manufacture 675,000 motorcycles. Our immediate business outlook remains strong and Royal Enfield continues to grow consistently, competitively and profitably towards leading and expanding the mid-sized motorcycle segment globally,” he added.
Royal Enfield opened its first direct distribution subsidiary in Milwaukee, North America this year. It also opened exclusive stores in London, Paris, Dubai and Madrid and entered two of the biggest two-wheeler markets in the world with the launch of its first exclusive stores in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Bangkok, Thailand.
