Piaggio, the Italian scooter maker may enter the Indian market and also use the country as a regional manufacturing hub.

Late last year, Piaggio took over ailing Italian two-wheeler maker Aprilia, to create the world's fourth largest motorcycle maker. This takeover has given Piaggio access to Aprilia's range of 22 two wheeler models including scooterettes, scooters and motorcycles. Piaggio has now a portfolio of two-wheelers ranging from 50cc to 1000cc and eight production facilities worldwide with a capacity to make six lakh vehicles a year.

Also with the recent break up of Hero Motors tie up with Aprilia, Piaggio says it will source auto components and engines from Hero Motors that will give it a pricing edge in the Indian market.

Piaggio is considering India as a potential regional manufacturing hub for three-wheelers and already imports Euro10 million of components, mostly engine parts for two-wheelers from India.

Piaggio officials say that even though the company's focus is commercial vehicles in India, it will not stay out of the world's largest two-wheeler market.

With Aprilia exiting the venture with Hero Motors, Kinetic is the only other two-wheeler manufacturer to have a tie-up with an Italian two-wheeler maker (Italjet). It plans to introduce models from Italjet from April this year.

Hero Motors on its part has said it would try and sell engines for the scooters that are expected to be manufactured by the new Aprilia venture.

Last year, Hero Motors had announced that Aprilia was considering acquiring a 20 per cent stake in the company for about Rs100 crore and had earmarked an investment of about Rs135 crore over a period of three years for setting up a factory to make these scooters.

The tie-up involved design outsourcing, engine supply contract and full vehicle export under a buyback arrangement with Aprilia.

According to industry sources, Piaggio officials have been visiting India for the past few months to understand the scooter market, which is the second largest in the world.