So let us, at the very onset, clear it out that both these – Suzuki Inazuma and Kawasaki Z250 are fantastic machines and specially the Kwacker is one of our favorite. What we want to bring to the table is – fantastic machines do not guarantee sales!
Inazuma, as we all know, was a sales flop and in its short lifespan of about a year or so, Suzuki managed to sell only 232 units in all which is an average of less than 20 motorcycles every month (link to report). It was due to the atrocious initial price of the motorcycle along with the sub-par specs. For reference, the high selling and similarly priced Duke and RC390 have sold 2811 cumulative units (April to August 2015) averaging about 562 units per month for both. If you, so far, thought this is not what the motorcycle deserved…. here is more…
Kawasaki launched the naked Ninja – Z250, in India in October 2014 and repeated the same mistake of overestimating its prices. Despite bagging the tag of the cheapest Kawasaki India, it was launched at Rs 2.99 Lakhs ex-showroom Delhi. How many Z250s, do you think, has Kawasaki sold till now?
During the remaining part of the financial year ie from October 2014 till March 2015, 101 Z250s found a home. Fast forward to this FY (April 2015 to August 2015) and the tally has dropped to 28 units in 5 months which adds upto a total of 129 units in all, an average of under 12 motorcycles a month!
Does this mean naked motorcycles are not the preferred choice in higher segments? Though the balance may tilt towards the faired siblings but this is not true in absolute terms – it has also got to do with price! Inazuma, after the price reduction, got some traction in the market. We already know the response Duke 200 and 390 get in India and we expect the upcoming Mojo to further re-state what we just said…
