A few years back, Bajaj said rather than creating a lot of different motorcycle brands, they will predominantly work only on their Discover and Pulsar brands which will see different motorcycles bearing the same family name.
However, their domestic sales have been consistently falling and they have already and comfortably ceded the third spot to TVS motors. To catapult themselves back into the game, Bajaj has a new strategy in place, which will involve introduction of two new motorcycle brands in the range.
They intend to do about 2.2 Lakh monthly sales in 2015 which, Bajaj is confident, will be taken care by their current portfolio and new launches planned within them. However, for further growth they now see the necessity to introduce newer brands and Rajiv Bajaj says, they will launch two new brands into the domestic market within the next 12 months.
At this moment, there has been no confirmation on what segment these brands will target and what capacity motorcycles will they spawn. Bajaj has not launched many new products in the market for sometime now. The last launch from them were the Discover 150 twins which are doing good.
However, their Pulsar lineup and Avenger have remained largely the same (apart from some minor sticker jobs and fancy names) for the last many months now. A report on Livemint says that these two new brands will be based in the segment which accounts for two-third of the domestic motorcycle market, which means we are essentially looking at the mass market segment.
The report further goes on to say that one of their product will be positioned between the Platina and the Discover. Clearly, the company is planning to resurrect their falling domestic sales but we still feel there could be something for performance enthusiasts as well, somewhere!
But, we suggest Bajaj not to hurry onto something and then discontinue it if it doesn’t work within a few months, like what the case with innumerable Discovers have been.