Honda Motor Co, the Japanese automobile MNC has reportedly appointed Minoru Kato as the president and chief executive officer of its Indian arm, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Pvt Ltd (HMSI). He will assume responsibility of this role from April 1, succeeding Keita Muramatsu, who will now be the executive vice president at American Honda Co Inc.

Kato has been working with Honda Motor Co for 29 years now, and was the CEO of Honda Vietnam Co. Ltd since April 2014. He has experience in domains like motorcycle planning, production control and sales across Japan, South-East Asia and Europe.

Muramatsu served as HMSI’s CEO for six years, during which time he led the company’s rise from the fourth to second position in the Indian two-wheeler market, with the market share jumping from 14 to 27 per cent. In his tenure, HMSI became the highest contributor to Honda’s two-wheeler sales globally, for the first time ever in 2016. He was also at the forefront of HMSI’s aggressive campaign of investing in 'Make in India', as a result of which the company grew from a single manufacturing plant in 2010-11, to four plants by 2016-17. Consequently, the total annual production capacity increased from 16 lakh to 58 lakh units, in those six years. 

Last month, HMSI had reported a growth of 5 per cent in their domestic sales, and had also emerged as the highest contributor by volume (with an addition of 24,150 units) in the two-wheeler industry. The new models of two-wheelers being produced at each of the company’s four plants are all compliant to the latest ‘Bharat Stage-IV’ (BS-IV) emission norms.