Honda Philippines

Also known as: HPI · Honda Philippines, Inc. · Honda PH (motorcycle division) · Mariwasa-Honda, Inc. (original corporate name, 1973-1983) · Honda motorcycles Philippines (colloquial; not to be confused with Honda Cars Philippines)

Automotive

Definition

Honda Philippines, Inc. (HPI) is the Philippine motorcycle manufacturing and sales company of Honda Motor Co., Ltd., and the country’s largest motorcycle maker. It was established on May 24, 1973 as the joint venture Mariwasa-Honda, Inc., which began Philippine motorcycle production with about 4,700 units in its first year; Honda took majority control in December 1983 and the company became Honda Philippines, Inc. Since 2006 it has operated the country’s largest motorcycle manufacturing plant, at the First Philippine Industrial Park in Batangas province, with an annual capacity of 640,000 units, and by April 2024 its cumulative production had passed 8 million motorcycles. (Honda Philippines — 50 Years of Mobility and Comfort, Philippine News Agency — Honda Optimistic on Hitting 1-M Motorcycle Sales in PH)

HPI is not to be confused with Honda Cars Philippines, Inc. (HCPI), the separate and unrelated Honda automobile distributor established in November 1990, which assembled passenger cars in Santa Rosa, Laguna until March 2020; the two companies share a brand but sell different products through different dealer networks. The motorcycle company sold 945,360 units in the fiscal year April 2024 to March 2025 — about 55 percent of the market as tracked by the Motorcycle Development Program Participants Association (MDPPA), of which it was a founding member in 1973 — and its range spans automatic scooters such as the Click and PCX160, underbone “Cub” models such as the Wave and XRM, business motorcycles such as the TMX, and imported big bikes. (Honda Global Newsroom — Honda to Conclude Automobile Production in the Philippines, Philippine News Agency — Honda Optimistic on Hitting 1-M Motorcycle Sales in PH, Honda Philippines — 50 Years of Mobility and Comfort)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	Honda
Wikidata	Honda (Q9584)
DBpedia	Honda
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	Honda
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	Motorcycles
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Honda Philippines motorcycle underbone scooter Batangas plant market share
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

HPI
Honda Philippines, Inc.
Honda PH (motorcycle division)
Mariwasa-Honda, Inc. (original corporate name, 1973-1983)
Honda motorcycles Philippines (colloquial; not to be confused with Honda Cars Philippines)

Examples and Analogies

The volume king: HPI’s one-year tally of 945,360 units in fiscal 2024-2025 is roughly one new motorcycle for every 120 Filipinos — each year — and its 8 million cumulative units approach the entire 8.5 million-unit registered motorcycle fleet counted by the Land Transportation Office in 2023. (Philippine News Agency — Honda Optimistic on Hitting 1-M Motorcycle Sales in PH)
From joint venture to giant: The company’s arc — 4,700 units in 1973, one million cumulative units in February 2005, eight million by April 2024 — is like a sari-sari store that grew into a chain, with the Batangas plant’s 640,000-unit capacity as the warehouse behind it. (Honda Philippines — 50 Years of Mobility and Comfort, Honda Global Newsroom — New Plant Being Constructed)
Two Hondas, one brand: A Filipino buying a Honda motorcycle deals with HPI in Batangas-backed dealerships; a neighbor buying a Honda City sedan deals with HCPI, the separate car company that ended local assembly in 2020 — the way two franchises can share a sign but run different kitchens. (Honda Global Newsroom — Honda to Conclude Automobile Production in the Philippines)
The tricycle workhorse: Since the TM110 of 1976 and the TMX155 of 1981, Honda’s business models have been the engines of the country’s sidecar fleets, making HPI a parts supplier to municipal transport as much as a seller of private bikes. (Honda Philippines — 50 Years of Mobility and Comfort)

Usage Scenarios

1. Buying a Mass-Market Commuter

Most customers encounter HPI through its automatic scooters (BeAT, Click125i, Click160, DIO, PCX160, ADV160) and underbones (Wave RSX, XRM125, Supra GTR150), the categories in which the company took the number-one automatic-segment position in 2020 on the strength of the Click line. (Honda Philippines — 50 Years of Mobility and Comfort)

2. Learning to Ride at the Honda Safety Driving Center

New riders take beginner, refresher, and corporate fleet courses at the Honda Safety Driving Center, whose motorcycle program requires a license with Restriction Code 1 and runs day and night sessions Mondays to Saturdays. (Honda PH — HSDC Training Courses)

3. Livelihood and Tricycle Use

Business models such as the TMX125 and TMX Supremo serve tricycle operators and delivery livelihoods, supported by the more than 1,300 sales-service-spare parts (3S) shops of MDPPA members nationwide. (Honda Philippines — 50 Years of Mobility and Comfort, MDPPA — About Us)

4. Buying a Big Bike

HPI also imports and sells big bikes — from the CB500 series to the Gold Wing — giving upgraders a ladder from a Click160 to a liter-class tourer within one dealer network. (Honda Philippines — 50 Years of Mobility and Comfort)

Strategies

Manufacture at scale inside the country: HPI builds its mass-market models at the Batangas plant (opened 2006, capacity 640,000 units a year), consistent with an industry in which MDPPA members assemble some 85 percent of units from completely knocked-down kits. (Honda Philippines — 50 Years of Mobility and Comfort, MDPPA — About Us)
Climb the displacement ladder: The company sequences buyers from automatic scooters to Cubs, sports models such as the CBR150R, and imported big bikes, keeping customers in the brand as incomes rise. (Honda Philippines — 50 Years of Mobility and Comfort)
Sell nearly everything locally, test exports at the margin: Practically all of the roughly 8 million units made in Batangas were sold in the Philippines, with only small trial exports — about 40 units to New Zealand reported in 2025. (Philippine News Agency — Honda Optimistic on Hitting 1-M Motorcycle Sales in PH)
Organize the policy table: As a founding member of the 1973 association that became MDPPA, HPI helps speak for the industry on tariffs, safety regulation, and sales reporting. (MDPPA — About Us)

Security and Safety Measures

Rider training infrastructure: The Honda Safety Driving Center offers structured courses for beginners with no riding experience, refresher students, and corporate fleets — the company’s institutional answer to rider-skill gaps in a first-bike market. (Honda PH — HSDC Training Courses)
Helmet advocacy amid crash data: Department of Health monitoring in early 2026 found that 7 of 10 road-crash deaths recorded in its sentinel hospitals involved motorcycle riders and that most of the dead were unhelmeted, the statistics behind manufacturers’ and regulators’ helmet campaigns. (Philippine News Agency — DOH Road Crash Update)
Compliance with the motorcycle plate law: HPI’s fleet falls under Republic Act No. 11235’s bigger, readable plate requirements, a law riders and manufacturers opposed at the Senate and whose penalties were rationalized by the 2025 amendment, Republic Act No. 12209. (Inquirer News — Motorcyclists Buck Double Plates Law, LawPhil — Republic Act No. 12209)

Historical Context

Honda entered Philippine manufacturing in 1973 through Mariwasa-Honda, Inc., producing about 4,700 motorcycles in the first year from a Parañaque-area plant and building its early business on tricycle-duty models such as the TM110 and TMX155. Honda Motor took majority control in December 1983 and renamed the company Honda Philippines, Inc.; the Wave110 (2000) and XRM (2002) then powered its rise to the top of the market, and cumulative production reached one million units in February 2005. (Honda Philippines — 50 Years of Mobility and Comfort, Honda Global Newsroom — New Plant Being Constructed)

To hold that lead, HPI broke ground in February 2005 on a new plant in the First Philippine Industrial Park in Batangas — a 1.3-billion-peso investment announced for Santo Tomas with a 500,000-unit initial capacity, expandable to one million — and moved manufacturing there in April 2006. Production milestones followed on an accelerating clock: two million units in 2008, five million in 2016, seven million in August 2022, and eight million by April 2024; in 2023 the company marked its 50th anniversary and installed Sayaka Arai as its first female president. (Honda Global Newsroom — New Plant Being Constructed, Honda Philippines — 50 Years of Mobility and Comfort, Philippine News Agency — Honda Optimistic on Hitting 1-M Motorcycle Sales in PH)

Challenges and Controversies

The Double-Plate Law and Its Undoing

Republic Act No. 11235 (2019) required bigger, readable, color-coded plates on all motorcycles, drawing some 200 riders and manufacturers to the Senate in protest over cost and safety concerns; implementation disputes persisted until Republic Act No. 12209 (2025) rationalized penalties and ownership-transfer rules. As the seller of more than half of new motorcycles, HPI sits closest to the compliance burden the law created. (Inquirer News — Motorcyclists Buck Double Plates Law, LawPhil — Republic Act No. 12209)

Road-Safety Externalities of Dominance

Selling 945,360 units in a single fiscal year makes HPI the largest single contributor to the country’s two-wheeler fleet, in a road environment where the DOH attributes 7 of 10 road-crash deaths in its sentinel hospitals to motorcycle riders — the tension between sales growth and crash statistics that rider training and helmet campaigns are expected to absorb. (Philippine News Agency — Honda Optimistic on Hitting 1-M Motorcycle Sales in PH, Philippine News Agency — DOH Road Crash Update)

What the Sales Data Does and Does Not Show

HPI’s reported 55-percent share is measured within MDPPA’s membership, which covers the Japanese-brand assemblers; large volumes sold by Chinese and other brands outside the association are absent from the headline figures, so the company’s dominance is real but precisely bounded by the data’s reach. (Philippine News Agency — Honda Optimistic on Hitting 1-M Motorcycle Sales in PH, MDPPA — About Us)