Bajaj Discover has now become the world’s largest selling motorcycle brand, overtaking Hero Splendor in the month of September, 2012. Discover sold a record 122,968 bikes in the month of September compared 1,21,018 units of the Splendor. This is the first time Hero Splendor has been dethroned by any individual brand in India. Splendor sales has gone down from 2,53,149 units in the May 2012 to 1,21,018 units in September 2012.
According to K Srinivas, President – Motorcycle Business, Bajaj Auto, “This is a major milestone in our journey towards excellence in motorcycle business. Our strategy of specializing in motorcycles, developing differentiated products and thereby creating a sharp brand position has clearly succeeded. We firmly believe that brands work only when they have a sharp position. Discover has successfully been positioned as “CHALTA NAHI DAUDTA BIKE” thereby appealing to the commuters who would like to evolve to more sporty bikes. Discover has successfully broken the compromise that the average commuter was forced to make by offering styling and performance of a sports bike, yet with comfort and economy of a commuter bike.”
He further added, “Discover has been a technology and marketing success story for Bajaj. The recently launched Discover 125 ST generated an overwhelming response and has sold 35,000 bikes in September – within 3 months of launch. We plan to expand on our lead in the coming months by focusing on the sharp brand values of Discover.”
Discover is one of the largest selling brands in the Indian motorcycle market with nearly 55 Lakh owners of Discover bikes all across the country. It is also one of the highest exported motorcycle model from India with 750,000 bikes being sold to date in countries across the world. Bajaj Auto has further segmented the commuter category to Commuter and Commuter Sports. The Discover 100 is a part of the commuter category while the Discover 125 ST is a part of Commuter Sports category. Essentially the Commuter Sports category offers better performance, features and styling elements for the customer who wants more without sacrificing on mileage.
Incidentally, the all new Discover 125 ST is doing extremely well with more than 65000 vehicles being sold within 3 months of national launch. The company is further planning to up the production to 45,000 units for October and 50,000 units for November 2012. The company will produce total 1,50,000 and 1,60,000 units of Discover for the month of October and November which includes 20,000 units for export. The company is also expanding its capacity to 5.7 million units of motorcycles from current 4.5 million units.
It is interesting to see if Bajaj Discover will maintain its lead over Hero Splendor as the production cut was only for September month to normalize the inventory level. Hero will up the production in the October and November month, which can further give Splendor its leadership position back.
-Mahavir Kothari
