Hero Motocorp displaces TVS Motors from second spot of domestic scooter manufacturer

Hero Motocorp is facing many bad news from past few months. Month on Month sales is declining and in September it saw the largest fall in the motorcycle sales. It sold 3,44,512 units domestically in the month of September 2012 down by 30.59% compared to 4,96,344 units in the month of September 2011. What more, its flagship motorcycle Splendor dethroned by Discover as world’s largest selling motorcycle brand. However, despite these falling sales, Hero Motocorp has emerged as country’s second largest scooter manufacturer.

September 2012 Scooter Sales numbers

It has sold whopping 49,340 units of scooter domestically in the month of September 2012 up by 46.25% compared to 33,737 units of scooter in the month of September 2011.  TVS Motors sold 39,075 units of scooters domestically in the month of September 2012 down by 26.71% compared to 53,316 units in the month of September 2011. It is also surprising that Hero Motocorp is growing much faster than country’s largest scooter manufacturing company HMSI (Honda Motorcycle and Scooters India Ltd.). HMSI sales grew by 15.51% in the month of September 2012 which is much lesser than Hero Motocorp’s 46.25%. It is also much better than industry growth of 10.17% in the month of September 2012.

The launch of Maestro has done the trick for Hero Motocorp. It has added additional 10,000-15,000 units per month in Hero Motocorp’s scooter sales tally. With the festive season coming up Hero Motocrop is gearing up for production of 60,000 units of scooter per month which represents half of the HMSI’s scooter sales. The company will have 20% market share of scooter sales in the coming months. Hero Motocorp is gaining market share at the cost of Suzuki Motorcycle and TVS Motors.

It also appears that HMSI will face major competition in the Indian scooter market as all the new scooter launches are getting overwhelming response. Yamaha Ray has got advanced booking of 5,000 Ray within 10 days while Piaggio has sold more than 15,000 Vespa till September. Piaggio is also planning to launch mass market scooter in the year 2013. TVS Motors is also planning to come with some fantastic scooter models in 2013.  Apart from this, growing popularity of Maestro and Pleasure will hit HMSI market share in the year 2013.

Mahavir Kothari