Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has signed an agreement to buy bicycles from India’s Hero Cycles, marking the first time the discounter has sourced cycles from outside of China in many years, according to a report in the Business Standard, one of India’s leading English-language newspapers.
The deal will enable Hero Cycle to double production to 10 million units annually by 2015. Wal-Mart Stores retail outlets already carry Hero bikes in India, where Hero is the dominant bicycle brand, but the Indian manufacturer is gearing up to supply the massive retailer global network of more than 10,000 stores. The bikes will retail for about $200.
Wal-Mart Stores Is reportedly the largest seller of bicycles in the United States, but has sourced them almost exclusively from China since the 1990s. Hero Cycles recently hired former Schwinn Bicycles President Kevin Lamar to run its U.S. business from an office in Denver that will oversee the Wal-Mart deal.
