Yamaha sees Asean push lifting margins as demand wanes in Indonesia

Tokyo

YAMAHA Motor Co, which sold a third of its motorcycles in Indonesia last year, plans to make up for a slump in the market by boosting sales to the rest of Southeast Asia with new models and almost double profit margin in the region.

The operating profit ratio for the two-wheeler business in the Asean region may reach 10 per cent as soon as this year, compared with 5.7 per cent in 2015, CEO Hiroyuki Yanagi said in an interview on Tuesday. That's at least a year ahead of projections by Koichi Sugimoto, an analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley.