Honda Motor stated on Wednesday it would start selling its six-seater business jet in Japan from 2019, as it looks forward to increase global sales by tapping into need from a growing class of high net-worth individuals.
The automaker is presently awaiting certification for the plane both at home and in China, after having already received U.S. and European certifications over the past two years.
Honda stated it had partnered with trading house Marubeni Corp for regional deliveries of the jet.
Marubeni will start delivering the jets around the first half of the next year, pending certification, Honda stated, adding it hoped to double Japan’s overall use of business jets over five years.
“At the moment Japan does not have a strong culture of using business jets … but the number of high-net worth individuals is competitive with that in the United States,” Hondajet CEO Michimasa Fujino informed reporters at a briefing on Wednesday.
“We want to target these clients to expand the market,” stated Fujino, who is also the chief engineer of the business jet.
The Hondajet will come to the country after Honda provided its first aircraft in 2015 in the United States.
Fujino stated he hoped to tap into the regional market, where business jets are limited with about 90 in use right now, in its early stages and concentrate both on fleet sales and selling to individual customers.
