Thai Yamaha Motor Co, the local unit of the Japanese motorcycle maker, remains upbeat about sales prospects this year despite the sluggish economy.
The company projected its sales will surge by 18.6% to 250,000 motorcycles this year, with its market share rising to 14.7% from 12.6% last year.
Chief operating officer Praphan Phornthanavarsit said Yamaha's performance in 2016 would be driven mainly by the sports motorcycle segment in which the company aims to sell 50,000 units this year, up sharply by 129% from the year before.
Of that, the big bike segment with engines over 400cc would account for 2,100 units, up by 40% from 2015.
For the mass motorcycle segment, Yamaha also expects its sales to increase by 5.8% to 200,000 units this year.
"Yamaha will continue to focus on sports motorcycles and big bikes in order to avoid risks from the mass market that has been hard hit by the faltering economy," he said.
Yamaha reported yesterday it sold a total of 210,801 motorcycles last year, down by 4.4% from the year before. The market share edged down by 0.4% to 12.6%.
The decline was mainly due to the sales dip in the mass motorcycle segment, which sharply decreased by 12.7% to 188,994 units.
Sports motorcycles and big bikes surged 446% to 21,827 units.
"I am confident Yamaha is pursuing the right business policy in the Thai motorcycle market," Mr Praphan said.
"We're fully optimistic about achieving our mission to recoup our sales to 360,000 motorcycles in 2018 with a market share of 20%. Of that, sports motorcycles and big bikes will represent 70,000 units."
Yamaha's sales peaked in 2009 with 429,000 motorcycles, capturing a 28% market share.
Mr Praphan forecast Thailand's overall motorcycle market would grow by 1.4% to 1.7 million units this year.
In a related development, Yamaha reported yesterday its new production line for golf carts at the plant on Bang Na-Trat Road in Samut Prakan province started operation last November.
Despite the country's sluggish motorcycle market, Thai Yamaha Motor Co announced last year it would invest 2 billion baht from 2015-17 to upgrade and expand production.
About 700 million baht was spent last year to upgrade its existing plant on Bang Na-Trat Road and set up the production line for golf carts.
Mr Praphan said the company plans to raise the output of golf carts to 5,000 units this year from 2,000 in 2015.
Of the total, 3,000 units will be shipped to Asia and Oceania, while the domestic market will account for the remainder.