Allow me to dissect some quotes from this Forbes story:
Piaggio SpA plans to open production sites in Brazil and Vietnam to reach its production target of 1 mln vehicles by 2010, chairman and CEO Roberto Colaninno said…
That means every Farm and Fleet will get a weekly shipment of 48 Piaggio Flys, an LX50, and one top-end Moto Guzzi.
The producer of motorcycles and light commercial vehicles manufactured 650,000 vehicles in 2006,…an additional 200,000 units were produced by Piaggio’s joint venture in China but are not consolidated in the group’s sales…
They’ll be counting Chinese production as part of that one million, I bet.
Colaninno said that Piaggio has superceded its restructuring phase and will now focus on growth.
Scooterists don’t need Forbes to tell us Piaggio is focused on growth, to the detriment of any other attribute.
Colaninno added that the group will have three business areas — Europe, the Americas and Asia/Africa — which will have their own production sites and distribution networks.
HOLD THE PHONE– are they saying that Piaggio products for the Americas will be produced IN THE AMERICAS? (i.e. Brazil?) Very interesting.
The group’s brands — Piaggio, Vespa, Gilera, Guzzi and Aprilia — will be maintained but have similar distribution channels, he said.
How has Derbi stayed out of this mess? And will high-end motorcycle buyers stand for Brazillian product?
The story also reports that production in India is up, with a new diesel engine plant in the works. It’s hard to say these days what’s built where, and where the components come from, but if the Pontedera factory is not already an anachronism for tourists, it looks like it may be within the next decade. We look forward to more corporate chest-banging at Piaggio’s Berlin Conference tomorrow.
NAFTA, CAFTA, SAFTA. Lets start thinking of all the stuff we can sell to Brazillians. Do your part, American 2StrokeBuzz readers, to narrow this trade gap!
Growth is just the latest near meaningless buisness buzzword to come after “tech” to create some sort of interest from stock buyers to inflate the value of a company. Have ideas like profit and sustainable revenue become outdated concepts?
(End bush league economics rant.  Don’t even get me started on baseball.)
What about Indian scooter production? You big silly!
Dave
Your commentary had me chuckling.
I don’t know if Brazilian product will be a problem. The last generation of VW Golfs were made in Brazil. They were as good as the German ones, from what I’ve read.
I don’t know, Bryce, it’s hard to top Italian quality, ha. I just think it’s strange that they’d build production lines for six brands with dozens of vehicles each on four or five continents, all using local suppliers. It doesn’t seem logical. Then again, I’m not the CEO of a meganational corpolopolis.
one million? ill bet the chinese will target one billion!!