Asian motorcycle markets

Suzuki Motor Corporation has just founded new production facilities in the Phillipines in an investment of 2.
1 billion Yen – about 19 million euros.
The new Phillipines motorcycle production plant will start operating in June 2012 under the Suzuki Phillipines Incorporated business.
It’s SMC’s production branch for the country and originally started production back in 1985.

The new plant should increase Suzuki’s production from the 85,000 units made from April 2010 to March 2011 and give it a larger share of the Phillipines motorcycle market, which registered 760,000 units in 2010.

That’s a year-on-year growth of 19 percent.
Suzuki’s new production plant will have a capacity of about 200,000 units a year.
With news that Honda is expanding its production in Vietnam, developments that could lead Bajaj to a 49 percent stake in KTM and Yamaha pulling out of the world Superbike championship – following Ducati in 2010 and Kawasaki from the MotoGP in 2008, it seems that it could be Asia to save the world motorcycle markets at this stage.

Bajaj and KTM have managed a joint production effort with the KTM 125 Duke, but where are the high profile Asian riders (not just from Japan) and more joint product development…?