Hero MotoCorp, India’s largest two-wheeler maker by volume, has forayed into Argentina. This makes the football-playing nation Hero’s 35th global market. According to Hero, the plan is to grow this to 50 global markets by the year 2020.
Hero will be playing the CKD game in Argentina and has appointed Marwen SA as its local distributor for the purpose. The two have already appointed 40 dealers in the Buenos Aires area of Argentina – an area that accounts for the lion’s share of two-wheeler sales in the country. This network will increase to nearly 100 dealers by the end of this calendar year.
According to Pawan Munjal, managing director, Hero MotoCorp, south and central American markets like Argentina and Columbia before it, are low hanging fruit that offer higher and quicker chances of growth and success compared to the developed and more competitive western markets. The idea now is to head to Mexico, as the sixth largest country in the Americas offers equally good growth potential.
Coming back to Argentina, Hero will start operations with four products. The first is the all-new Glamour that also makes its global debut alongside this announcement and the Hunk, the Xtreme Sports and the Maestro Edge scooter will join it. But, to clarify, these products have been rebadged for the Argentinian market and will be sold as the Ignitor, Hunk, Hunk Sports and Dash, respectively.
Hero meanwhile is a late entrant in the Argentinian two-wheeler market that boasts of 500,000-a-year sales volume. It has Bajaj Auto to contend with which sells a range of its Pulsar models (albeit branded as Rouser), and of course, the Chinese. But, according to Hero, the inherent qualities of its products give it a great chance at success. Things like quality, performance, reliability, styling and after sales will give the Hero range an advantage over its Chinese counterparts.
And, of course, having signed on Argentine soccer legend and the winner of the Best Soccer Coach for 2016, Diego Simeone as its brand ambassador, will only help towards making Hero a household brand. Finally, in the second phase of its Argentine operations, Hero MotoCorp will bring in more products across different segments.
