The chairman of the Rs 1,100 crore (Rs 11 billion) Kinetic Group, Arun Firodia, believes that Indian-made scooters have achieved global-level sophistication.
"Indian scooter manufacturers are now in a position to improve the technology to a level where it can not only withstand competition but also compete internationally. Scooter exports will soon assume as important a position as software in India," Firodia said.
"I see scooter exports growing 30 to 40 per cent over the next four years," he added.
The company is planning substantial exports of Nova, its four-stroke scooter launched last year, and has sought technical clearance from different international agencies for the same.
He said, this had been made possible by the government's liberal policies and hoped that the import duty will be lowered in the coming Budget.
"There is now no threat from China. In fact, China did a kind of service to Indian manufacturers by breaking the Japanese monopoly in the world markets," he said.
"The Chinese broke the Japanese with their highly affordable products. However, customers soon realised that Chinese products did not have quality and so are now looking at Indian products," Firodia said.
Domestically, too, scooters are doing very well, he said. On the whole, the scooter market was shrinking on account of falling demand for geared scooters, but gearless scooters were growing annually at a clip of 10 per cent, he said.
Firodia said that customers in urban markets had started favouring scooters more than motorcycles due to their superior technology and fuel efficiency.
Kinetic will be investing Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) in the year 2003-04 in capacity addition, upgradation and research and development, he said.
"We intend increasing capacity from the present level of 3 lakh (300,000) vehicles per annum to nearly 5 lakh (500,000)," he said.
Firodia said Nova was being exported to Latin American countries and also to south Asian nations. "We are working on homologating it for Europe, the US and Australia," he said.