India's Hero Motors Company (HMC) Group on Tuesday announced plans to set up a new international headquarters, Hero International (HIT), in London as part of a push towards expanding Hero Cycles' overseas business and strengthening its global presence.

The Hero Motors Company (HMC) Group plans to set up a new international headquarters in London named Hero International (HIT). This initiative has been taken towards expanding Hero Cycles’ all over the world as a measure of strengthening its global presence.

However, the company has commented that HIT is aiming at bringing HMC’s European businesses under one management and to provide its electric bike business a major boost worldwide.

Pankaj M Munjal, Chairman and Managing Director, Hero Motor Company says, "With Hero International (HIT), the HMC Group now has an international headquarters in London to act as a catapulting agent to our global expansion plans."

He further adds, "E-bike sales are expected to reach an estimated 30 million in Europe by 2030 growing at a CAGR of 26 per cent between 2024 and 2030. With Europe as our key market, HMC has set its sights on capturing a greater pie of this fast-growing e-bike segment with a goal of touching revenue of Euro 300 million by 2025.”

Also, the new headquarters would unify HMC-owned European businesses, which includes HNF GmbH in Germany and Insync Bikes in UK, as part of a long-term vision to grab an increasing share in the lucrative e-bike market growing at an exponential pace in Europe.

HIT is expected to play a strategic role in reforming and bringing together different strategic strengths of the group that also includes its European research, development and design centres, backed up with a scaling up of the company’s manufacturing capability in India.

Pankaj continues, "The dedicated headquarters in Europe will enable us to devise an effective long term growth strategy backed up by manufacturing support from India where we are scaling up production capacity significantly through the International Cycle Valley project."

However, the ambitious international plans are support by the backend support with the upcoming E-Cycles Valley project in Punjab, which would add a capacity of four million bikes and e-bikes across Sri Lanka and India from where the group avails zero duty exports to European Union (EU).

Hero Cycles, subsidiary of India’s HMC Group, has a manufacturing capacity of six million bicycles per year and a network of plants located in Ghaziabad (UP), Ludhiana (Punjab), and Bihta (Bihar). Furthermore, it also has a state of the art manufacturing facility in Sri Lanka as well as a Design Centre in the UK. The company also owns UK-based Avocet Sports, Germany-based HNF, and Firefox Bikes in India.

Although, Avocet Sports was Hero Cycles’ first overseas possession and the one that marked the company’s entry into the European bicycle market, HNF marked the company’s foray into the e-bikes segment.