INTERVIEW
P86
HERO MOTOCORP'S PAWAN MUNJAL
H
ero MotoCorp—get used to
the name, because you'll be
hearing a lot more of it from
here on out.
Just as in 1958 when hardly
anyone outside Japan had ever
heard of Honda, until three years
ago, Hero was the name on
the bike you saw the heroes in
Bollywood movies riding off into
the sunset—nothing more. Since
2001, India's Hero MotoCorp
has been the world's largest
pure motorcycle manufacturer,
but until now its annual sales of
over six million powered two-
wheelers (PTW) have predomi-
nantly been concentrated in
its Indian home market (since
2012 the world's largest, ahead
of China, with 14,805,481 PTW
sold in 2014).
Why? Hero could not sell its
products in the 150 other coun-
tries around the world (where its
then-partner Honda was already
a significant player) as a result of
a condition of the tie-up in 1984
with the Japanese giant that led
HERO MOTOCORP BOSS PAWAN MUNJAL TALKS BUSINESS
BY ALAN CATHCART
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KYOICHI NAKAMURA
PART I: GOING GLOBAL
