strong brand in its own right so if the company manages the transitionrelated uncertainty well the impact should not be too much hero hondas biggest advantage is cost and if they can maintain that theyre no a good wicket besides hero also gets to enter the export marketthe company is already working on a rebranding strategy and is looking to get rid of the honda tag earlier than the june 2014 deadline but the company sud says plans to launch 78 products a year of which 34 will be new products and the rest modified variants since honda and hero have decided to part ways the earlier we drop the honda brand name the better for us he says that apart hero honda also has the option of driving the strong products in its portfolio as brands like the pulsar is a brand hero hondas biggest sellers splendor and passion are brands says a rival auto ceo how does it matter whether the corporate brand is honda or hero the products sell on their own brand strength sud agrees thats an option the company has apart from the cb and cd brands which are owned by honda the rest of the product pet names are owned by herohowever he agrees that the company will have to rebrand itself not only for products that dont have strong individual brand recall but also for the new products hero honda will launch the company knows former partner hondas 100 subsidiary hmsi is planning a lowcost 100 cc product to attack its bread and butter market the motorcycle business is not only about technology and products its also about distribution spares customer interface and on all those we are very strong says sud hero hondas confidence is understandable no one thinks the split from honda will hurt in the shortterm but as a rival auto firm ceo points out this is a longterm game