Harley-Davidson to shut sales and manufacturing operations in India
The announcement comes two months after Harley unveiled a technique to shift focus back to more profitable motorcycles and core markets like the us .
Harley-Davidson Inc. store on Khader Nawaz Khan Road in Chennai, Tamil Nadu , India, on Monday, July 21, 2014. (Photographer: Sanjit Das/Bloomberg)
Harley-Davidson Inc said on Thursday it might discontinue its sales and manufacturing operations in India, effectively abandoning the world’s biggest motorcycle market after a decade of unsuccessful efforts to realize an edge .
Harley had spent recent months moving dealerships within the country to cheaper locations, and therefore the announcement followed speculation in Indian media a month ago that executives had played down.
The move involves $75 million in restructuring costs, some 70 redundancies and therefore the closure of its Bawal plant, walking faraway from a market worth about 17 million bike and scooter sales a year. (bit.ly/3mPHZnx) it’ll retain only a scaled-down sales office in Gurgaon, south of latest Delhi.
The departure is additionally the newest setback for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strategy to encourage domestic manufacturing that might keep more of the fruits of a big home consumer market in India.
Harley has been scrambling for years to grow sales beyond baby boomers within the us and has not posted retail sales growth there within the past 14 quarters.
Chief military officer Jochen Zeitz, who took the reins at the corporate in February, unveiled a serious “Rewire” in July to spice up profits by reducing Harley’s product portfolio by 30% and investing in 50 markets with growth potential in North America, Europe and parts of Asia Pacific.
India was one among the markets the corporate at that time committed to investing in additional heavily. Thursday’s statement said the move to go away had been pushed through since Aug. 6.
Harley said it now expects total restructuring costs of about $169 million in 2020, but warned that the restructuring program – mentioned internally as “The Rewire” – was likely to incur more charges.
India, still far cheaper and poorer than many of the developing economies with which it competes for investment, has proven an inhospitable marketplace for other auto industry players.
