Hero Advances Product Re-Launch Without Honda Name

Looks like Hero MotoCorp wants to take it up fast and furious way. It was only few days back when the company announced its aggressive expansion plans by investing huge amounts in setting up new plants and a R&D centre. In less than six days another announcement has been made now. Hero MotoCorp wanted to be recognized as an independent brand and for the same it started re-branding with ‘Splendor’ and ‘Passion’ already relaunched under the ‘Hero’ Brand. It gave itself a deadline of two years to relaunch its entire product range under the ‘Hero’ name. And now the deadline has been shortened to just six months.

What this means is that some products will get new names as Hero cannot use Honda patented names post 2014. Names such as CB, CD, CBZ will be entirely dropped from the name of Hero MotoCorp’s motorcycles. Thus Hero will re-launch all these products with a new name. The CBZ Xtreme has dropped the CBZ name altogether and is now the Hero Xtreme, while the CD Dawn too will be renamed to something which won’t violate the intellectual property rights of Honda.

As per the agreement with Honda, Hero was given rights to use the Brand ‘Hero Honda’ till 2014. But the company wants to let go of these rights to establish an independent identity. In fact, it closed it first financial year (FY 2011-12) as the separate entity with a record sales of 6.2 million units. Not just this, the company wants to embark upon its global journey by exporting its product range under its independent ‘Hero’ brand. Exports to countries like Central America and Nigeria will kick in by the start of the second quarter of this financial year with the company exporting ‘Hero’ branded 125 cc bikes. A week back, the company launched the Ignitor 125cc motorcycle in the Indian market, which is nothing but a re-badged Honda Stunner. Hero’s next product launch is the Passion xPro 110cc motorcycle.