Scooters was one segment which was dying a decade back which compelled Bajaj to move out of it. However, ironically, another manufacturer, Honda, not only resurrected it to levels never seen before, they almost make their living out of it!
Scooters, now form a significant chunk of sales for all manufacturers and is growing faster than motorcycles. Just to give you an example, Honda’s Activa often beats Splendor for the title of the largest selling two-wheeler in the country. The growing segment has also witnessed a few dramatic changes to the ranking of manufacturers which is now fought with a lot of aggression.
October 2014 Scooter Sales: Top Manufacturers:
Analysis:
- Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India Pvt Ltd. rules supreme with total sales of just a shade under 2 Lakh units in October 2014. It sells more than all the other manufacturers combined! Scooters form the major chunk of sales and if Honda can consolidate their strength in motorcycles, they can really come precariously close to Hero in the coming times.
- Beating Hero, its Chennai based TVS Motors which snatched the second position in Oct 14. TVS increased its sales from 40,818 units (in Oct 13) to 67,248 units in Oct 14. Launch of new products seems to be doing the trick for the company. Recent launch of entry-level 110cc Scooty Zest is expected to further increase this lead.
- Hero with all the Pleasures and Maestros in the scooter industry remained flat and sold about 81 scooters less than last Oct 13. Hero is still using Honda’s engines to propel its range of scooters, however, it needs to reduce this dependency gradually to save itself from a sudden fall. At 59,468 units sold in October, it is only the second company which has not experienced a growth on a year on year basis (it sold 59,498 units in October 2013).
- Suzuki is the second company which has experienced a drop in sales. With 27,113 units sold this year in October, company has fallen from the 32,131 units it sold in the same month last year. This drop despite the fact that Suzuki has launched 110cc Let’s scooter in the market.
- Yamaha is also revving up the pedal and has managed to come close to Suzuki within a short span of time. Mahindra’s latest launch Gusto should be raking in some handsome sales numbers but it has to get in some more products to sustain the momentum, if it would be generated. Now they have the Peugeot to bank upon, we expect some quick fireworks from them.
- Despite a higher sticker price, Piaggio’s Vespa range of premium scooters sold 3,005 units. However, in the cumulative sales for this year, they are lagging behind.
You see no Bajaj here because they have opted out of the segment to put all the resources and attention on motorcycles. At this moment Rajiv Bajaj is absolutely firm that he doesn’t want to enter this segment again. Let us see, if things change in the future…
Keep tuned, we are about to share motorcycle-only sales of these manufacturers and I am sure you would be interested in knowing how close (or far) is Honda from Bajaj 😉
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