The Yamaha-Mahindra tie up confusion persists

Twice we have brought you rumours that Yamaha and Mahindra were tying up in India. Though we said that one should never say never, we were extremely sceptical of the possibility of the tie up since we did not see any reason why Yamaha needed Mahindra.

The idea that Mahindra’s distribution network would be used by Yamaha in return for giving technology to Mahindra was at best preposterous, since Yamaha has a full fledged dealer and distributor network. Now we hear that the understanding between the two companies will be like that of Hero MotoCorp and Honda, where Honda sells its own bikes but also sells technology to Hero. Such an arrangement will not benefit Yamaha in any manner and on the contrary can hurt the prospects of Yamaha brand. Along with this news comes the news that Yamaha has said no to a tie up of any kind. This seems to be the most realistic but somehow we have feeling that this is not the end of rumours of the proposed tie-up.