Indonesia – Production began at the site in February 2003 with the Honda Stream. The original 512,500 sq.m factory had a capacity of 80,000 units; total volume was raised to 200,000 in January 2014 by the launch of a second plant covering 145,760 sq.m. Honda reports that its sales in Indonesia have increased from 22,000 in 2003 to 200,000 in 2016, representing a 19% market share.
“It is a great achievement to arrive at this milestone in just 14 years and follows Honda Motor Company’s 100-millionth unit of cumulative automobile production worldwide in September last year,” commented Seiji Kuraishi, executive vice-president of Honda Motor. “Honda sales in Indonesia were ranked in fourth position for Honda globally, behind only the US, China and Japan.”
Tomoki Uchida, president director of PT Honda Prospect Motor, added that the company will “continue investing to further enhance our production facilities and human resources” in Indonesia. The first two factories at Karawang cost 700 billion rupiah ($52.4m) and 3.1 trillion rupiah respectively and Honda also opened stamping and crankshaft plants in 2016.
The stamping facility, representing an investment of 194 billion rupiah, opened in May to make side panels, roof panels and floor panels, with a capacity of 2m parts per year for the domestic market plus exports. Honda says the plant features advanced technology including automatic processes and robotic systems. The 228 billion rupiah crankshaft facility started operations in September with a capacity of 240,000 units per annum. Honda says its high-precision machines and environmentally-friendly technology meet Low Cost Green Car regulations. The local content has so far reached 87%.
The two vehicle factories at Karawang currently make seven models: the Mobilio, BR-V, HR-V, Jazz, Brio RS, Brio Satya and CR-V. Honda exports these vehicles to neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, plus Asian and Latin American nations. It also sends components to Japan – 7,700 containers last year, up from 5,600 the year before. HPM plans to increase the export volume to nearly 10,000 containers, with a value of more than 2.5 trillion rupiah.
