Royal Enfield is growing again, opening its second production facility outside of India. This time, the new plant is in the South American country of Colombia.

Of course, the modern iteration of Royal Enfield is based in India, where the spin-off factory has succeeded in the decades after the original UK-based company went drainplug-up in the 1970s. In the past decade, Royal Enfield has gone from a niche manufacturer of barely-updated 1950s designs, to a serious player on the global scene. For a long time, Royal Enfield sold the majority of its bikes to Indian customers. Now, it’s selling bikes all over the world, with more unit sales than Harley-Davidson.

Royal Enfield’s management has made no secret of their company’s goal: To become the world’s largest manufacturer of mid-displacement motorcycles. To that end, the company has massively expanded its production capacity inside India, and is now working on doing the same in other countries. In 2020, Royal Enfield opened a plant in Argentina; now, it’s doing the same in Envigado, Antioquia, in Colombia.

The new factory is a knock-down facility; it will assemble motorcycles from parts that were made elsewhere. This is a very common ploy for moto manufacturers, as it often lets them dodge hefty import fees.

It also lets the company focus more closely on Colombia, which is a rapidly growing market for Royal Enfield. As per the presser:

Royal Enfield set up retail operations in Colombia in July 2014, with its first store in Cedritos in Bogotá. Since then, the company has expanded its retail network in the market and now has 15 exclusive stores in Colombia. Overall, Royal Enfield has 57 exclusive stores and 40 other retail touchpoints in all of Latin American countries …

From 2014 to 2021, Royal Enfield has seen significant growth in Colombia. From January 2015 to the present, Royal Enfield has sold more than 7,000 motorcycles in the market. The brand has seen an almost 70% growth in sales from January to July 2021, over the same period in 2020.

The new factory will focus on assembling Royal Enfield Himalayan adventure bikes.

Vezi sursa