Karawang, February 27, 2017 - PT Honda Prospect Motor (HPM) today celebrated its one million-unit automobile production milestone in Indonesia at its ceremony held at the Karawang Factory. Honorable guest, Director General of Metal, Machinery, Transportation Equipment, and Electronics, Mr. I Gusti Putu Suryawirawan, and other VIPs from the Indonesian government attended the ceremony while Mr. Seiji Kuraishi, Executive Vice President of Honda Motor Co., Ltd, and Mr. Noriaki Abe, President and CEO of Asian Honda Motor Co., Ltd. attended representing Honda together with Mr. Tomoki Uchida, President Director of HPM.

HPM began local automobile production in February 2003 with Honda Stream at its factory located in Karawang, West Java, Indonesia. The Karawang Factory was built on an area of ​​512,500 m² with an initial investment worth of 700 billion rupiah, with the production capacity of 80,000 units. HPM started constructing its second factory on a total building area of ​​145,760 m² in 2012 with an investment worth of 3.1 trillion rupiah. The second factory was inaugurated in January 2014 with the production capacity of 120,000 units, which makes the total production capacity of the company to 200,000 units per year.

Honda has enforced its production capacity in Indonesia to fulfill the increasing demands for Honda automobile products in the country. When Honda began its production in Indonesia in 2003, the sales result was approximately 22,000 units. Since then, Honda has increased the sales volume considerably and it recorded 200,000 unit sales in 2016 with 19% market share in the country. Currently, HPM produces 7 models at its two factories, which include very well-accepted Honda Mobilio, Honda BR-V, Honda HR-V, Honda Jazz, Honda Brio RS, Honda Brio Satya and Honda CR-V.

The Karawang Factory currently plays an important role in Honda’s global automobile component export worldwide. The export destinations include neighbouring ASEAN countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, other Asian countries such as India and Pakistan, as well as Latin American countries, including Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. HPM also delivers their component parts to Japan. In 2016, Honda component export from Indonesia significantly grew and increased the number of containers exported from 5,600 in 2015 to more than 7,700 containers. Consequently, the export value also increased from 1.8 trillion rupiah in 2015 to more than 2.2 trillion rupiah in 2016. In 2017, HPM plans to increase the export quantity to nearly 10,000 containers with a value of more than 2.5 trillion rupiah.

Honda further strengthened its production operations with the opening of its stamping factory, which produces automobile component parts such as side panels, roof panels and floor panels. The factory began its operation in May 2016 with a total investment of 194 billion rupiah. The factory has implemented advanced production technology, including automatic continuous process and robotic system and has the production capacity of up to 2 million pieces component parts per year for both domestic sales and export.

In September 2016, HPM made an additional 228 billion rupiah investment and started operation of its new factory for crank shaft. Honda employed advanced and environmentally friendly technology and adopted high-precision machines at this new factory to produce maximum of 240,000 crankshafts per year. This crank shaft factory is met with the regulation enforced by the Indonesian government for Low Cost Green Car (LCGC) models. Currently, HPM has achieved up to 87% local content in its products.

Seiji Kuraishi, Executive Vice President of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. said, "It is a great achievement to arrive at this milestone in just 14 years and follows in Honda Motor Company’s 100 millionth unit of cumulative automobile production worldwide in September last year. Honda sales in Indonesia was ranked in 4th position for Honda globally, behind only US, China and Japan. Indonesia has always been and always will be an important market for Honda. We will continue to dedicate ourselves to doing business in Indonesia and the expansion of automobile production capacities with new factories is a testament to that commitment.”

Tomoki Uchida, President Director of HPM, said, "The achievement of our one million-unit production milestone demonstrates how well Honda cars have been loved and acclaimed by our esteemed Indonesian customers, and also the commitment from Honda for the business development in Indonesia. We will continue investing to further enhance our production facilities and human resources and contributing to the Indonesian automotive industry and the society."