Upcoming Hero-Harley motorcycle will be launched under both monikers and it is already under development. This is exciting news!
India’s largest 2-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotoCorp is not known for its premium motorcycles. Most of its sales – almost 70-80 percent, come from its bread and butter models in the 100-125cc segment.
But in the last few years, Hero has been very vocal about going premium. It has already started its journey and has introduced three 200cc motorcycles. Apart from its own products, like the upcoming near 300cc Adventure model, prototype of which it revealed last year, Hero has formed a collaboration with American Harley Davidson.
Aside taking care of the distribution, sales and service of Harley branded big bikes, Hero has inked a deal that allows it to develop mid-capacity motorcycles (for Harley Davidson). Now, in a latest update, Niranjan Gupta, Chief Financial Officer at Hero MotoCorp, has revealed that the upcoming middle weight motorcycle(s) will be sold under both – Harley and Hero monikers!
This is a big development and clears that Hero is willing to learn a lot of tech from the American giant. An even bigger piece of news is that dedicated teams have been set-up which are already working on the development of this bike(s). Here is the exact revelation…
The key part of the Harley Davidson tie-up is the license to build the middle-weight segment, which is a very profitable segment, and the lead player has a market share of around 90 percent. So, there is this whole thing of developing the bike and putting it out in the market, both under the Harley and Hero name.
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In his statement, Niranjan inadvertently hinted at Royal Enfield (it has a market share of around 90 percent in the premium segment in India) and we know that Harley is known for making cruisers and motorcycles that have a genre-overlap with Royal Enfield (though at much higher price points).
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This also reveals that Harley may introduce an India-specific mid-capacity product which could gain from the local production capability of Hero. If two variants of the same platform bike are sold in the market, it will also improve the economies of scale and eventually, profitability!
Source – MoneyControl
