Many years back at the launch of Pantero, I had a word with one of Mahindra two-wheelers’ top official and told him that ‘top down‘ approach would have suited the company best. I repeated my opinion at Gusto’s media ride and after 4-5 years of making these products, Mahindra seems to have understood it, finally but the hard way!
According to a latest report at Money Control, Mahindra has quit the mass market two wheeler segment which majorly comprises of Centuro and Gusto. This means that both these products and all others in the entry level segment will be discontinued.
After sales of measly 6065 units in the domestic market, Mahindra’s sales plummeted 77 percent between April to July 2017 as compared to last year. Adding up the 471 crore loss of last year, total losses have accrued to Rs 2876 crore so far.
Mahindra confirmed and said…
“The company has withdrawn from the mass market segment of 2-wheelers and is currently developing products for niche markets,”
The focus will be on ‘premium’ products in India. They have acquired selling rights for iconic motorcycle brands like Jawa and BSA. While Jawa has been officially confirmed for India, with BSA they will focus on international markets. The other brand that they will work on is ‘Mojo’. As many as four new Mojos are under development and you can read more about them here.
It also gets abundantly clear that the company will NOT launch any new commuter motorcycle or scooter in the near future.
Few weeks back Pawan Goenka, M&M’s Managing Director, in a word with PTI (via Economic Times), said that they intend to ‘move away’ from the commuter segment. Here is the official quote,
“We are changing strategy as far as the two-wheeler business is concerned. We are moving away from the commuter segment to high-end premium bikes and we are working on bikes based on BSA and Yezdi brands,”
Also Read: Low Cost Mojo Spotted with Single Exhaust & Thinner Tyre
Simply putting it in words – Mahindra is doing the right thing now – it just does NOT make sense for them to continue with these products and hence discontinuation in the domestic markets is sensible. They will also enhance their focus on export markets – a number which is now bigger than the domestic sales.
