Honda has plans to increase its sales to 90,000 cars in the next fiscal year. This was revealed by the CEO of Asian Honda Motor Company, Tatsuhiro Oyama. He was speaking after inaugurating a new facility at the current production location in Greater Noida. With the opening of this facility the company plans to increase production to 1 lakh units per year.

Honda has invested 16.2 Billion rupees ($405 Million) since it set up its plant in India in 1997. Honda hopes to sell 68,000 cars by the end of March 2008. It will be investing Rs 10 Billion for this plant and eventually increase the plant’s production capacity to 2.4 lakh units per annum. A further investment of 20 Billion rupees is likely to be invested depending upon the demand for cars.

Honda is planning another production facility with a capacity of 60,000 units in Rajasthan in 2009. The company plans to increase its total capacity to 1,60,000 cars. Honda is currently selling premium mid-sized sedans like the City ZX, Civic, and Accord, and will introduce the Civic Hybrid sometime this year. It will also introduce its small car Jazz by the end of 2008.

Following the increase in production and a steeper sales target, the Japanese company is also looking at increasing its dealerships in India. It will be expanding its dealer network to 90 cities in India over the next 3 years. The number of dealerships will be doubled to 160 from the current 80 in 51 cities across the country.

According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, the passenger car sales will witness a 16 % growth in the next fiscal year. The premium sedan segment is expected to grow in the same range.