Piaggio announced a new business plan today:
The plan is focused on new industrial plants in India and in Vietnam, on strengthening the commercial presence in Asian markets via new products and on development of new technologies for European and American markets…”
This clearly breaks the paradigm and thinks outside the box of Piaggio’s 2007 plan to build more scooters in India and Vietnam and Brazil, while strengthening their commercial presence in Asian markets via new products and on development of new technologies for European and American markets.
Colaninno is surely a visionary, but I bet I can predict his 2012 plan: Piaggio will manufacture more different scooters, and sell them to people, at a profit — wait for it — around the world! If we’re all lucky, that may still include the United States
IMHO, Paggio’s bikes are way too expensive for the average N.American. The MP3 is an engineering idea that would have brought great sales if only the price was much lower in price. I would by a Stella/Kymco before I’d buy a Paggio/Vespa scooter, just because of price. To the prospective first-time scooter buyer, he/she sees 2-wheeled transportation, so he/she expects the price to be far less that any 4-wheel transportation available out there. (I put 5000 miles on my Yamaha Zuma in this past year.)