Not all Royal Enfield motorcycles are made in India. The motorcycle brand announced the opening of a new assembly plant in Argentina.
In cooperation with Grupo Simpa, the Argentinian distributor, the plant will build three models: the Himalayan, Interceptor 650, and Continental GT 650. The facility may be expanded to produce more models in the future. The factory is in Campana, Buenos Aires. Production of these models will start this September.
This is the first time since its revival that Royal Enfield's will be assembled outside India. Up until this point, all Royal Enfield models were manufactured in its facility in Chennai, India.
The new facility will assemble these models for the Latin American market. Argentina, one of the largest mid-capacity motorcycle markets of the region, will naturally take the lion’s share of bikes produced from this facility. The announcement was attended by Argentinian President, Alberto Fernández. Also present was Royal Enfield CEO, Vinod K Dasari.
“With a strategic view to cater to growing demand and to gain significant market advantage, we have been pursuing our plans to set up local assembly units across specific markets in the Asia Pacific region and across South America. In the first of these, we are very happy to announce the first CKD assembly plant in Argentina,” said Dasari.
It seems this won’t be the last as Royal Enfield plans to put up more factories across the globe. This includes Asia Pacific. If the company were to select an ASEAN member country (like the Philippines) for its next factory, we could see even more reasonably priced bikes, thanks to free trade agreements.
For now, Philippine-bound Himalayan, Interceptor, and Continental models will still be sourced from India.
