INTERVIEW
HERO MOTOCORP'S PAWAN MUNJAL
P88
the Munjals (the family behind
Indian bicycle giant Hero Cycles)
to create Hero Honda. This joint
venture dominated the Indian
PTW market for a quarter of a
century, with around 53 percent
of annual sales, Hero Honda
was comfortably selling more
motorcycles and scooters on an
ongoing basis than its second,
third and fourth placed rival-indig-
enous manufacturers combined.
But in December 2010 the joint
venture was wound up, and today
the Munjal family now controls
52.25 percent equity in the newly
rebranded Hero MotoCorp, hav-
ing bought out Honda's 26 per-
cent share for the colossal sum
of one billion dollars. Now freed
of previous restrictions, Hero has
already grown its overseas pres-
ence to more than a dozen coun-
tries. And although currently just
2.5 percent of those six million-
plus annual sales are outside In-
dia, Hero has already announced
its intention to shortly expand
its sales operation to the USA,
Europe and Australia. As part of
this, in July 2013 it purchased a
49.2 percent equity in Erik Buell's
privately-owned company EBR,
which since then has become
a key provider of new concept
models for Hero MotoCorp. And
as part of its effort to build global
brand awareness, Hero has
signed American golf legend (but
avowed non-motorcyclist!) Tiger
Woods on a four-year promo-
tional contract for a reputed $6.0
million. Pawan Munjal, the 59-
year old CEO and Vice Chairman
of Hero—who's an expert golfer
as well as industry tycoon—got
to play alongside him in a Florida
ProAm last December.
The chance to talk to Pawan
Munjal about his plans for this
huge company to become a ma-
jor player in the global motorcy-
cle industry, resulted in the first
one-on-one in depth interview
he had ever conducted with a
Western motorcycle journalist.
Mr. Munjal, please can you
give readers outside India
some background on Hero,
which after being number one
in India for many years, now
seems set to become a global
player in the motorcycle
industry?
Hero's hybrid
scooter—the Leap—
made quite the
impression
when the
prototype
was
unveiled in
2011.
