Aprilia RS457 sales are very encouraging. Combining domestic and exports, it is even rubbing shoulders with some much cheaper motorcycles..
Clearly the best thing to have happened to us mortals in the last five years is the Aprilia RS457. The discerning Indian motorcyclist has been wanting multi cylinder motorcycles for a long time – but he has one simple ask – it should be affordable.
Kawasaki understood this and kept the older Ninja 300 alive in India – despite it getting killed in all other parts of the world. The result is that the most affordable faired sportster Ninja 300 is one of the hot favorites for bikers who graduate from single cylinder motorcycles, despite the motorcycle being quite old, in terms of equipment and features on offer.
Surprisingly, someone from Italy heard us and Piaggio, which sells the Aprilia moniker, introduced a phenomenal motorcycle called as the RS457 few months ago. Not that we have not seen motorcycles better than this before, but what makes it real interesting is that is is made locally. And the end result is that it is affordable – fulfilling the biggest ask of a common biker.
And if the product is hot, brilliant in performance, comes with latest features – all packed around that Rs 4 Lakh mark – you are bound to get rewarded. Indians have responded very positively to the motorcycle and according to the SIAM-shared monthly sales data, it has amassed total sales of 924 units in the first quarter of this financial year ie from April to June 2024.
Without reference this data would look unclear and here are the numbers of its rivals in the same period…
| Aprilia RS457 | 924 units |
| Kawasaki Ninja 300 | 235 units |
| Yamaha R3 | 61 units |
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In fact RS457’s single month (June’s) sales of 505 units are more than the combined numbers of the other two in the whole quarter. In addition to this, Piaggio also exported 2663 units of the RS457 to other countries in this quarter. So, the maker registered total numbers of around 3500 units in total – which brings it in contention with some single cylinder, much cheaper motorcycles.
This is definitely encouraging and I am sure other international makers will be keeping a close tab on this. And that means we may see more motorcycles like the beautiful 457! And another 457 may be coming as well..
