Remember, the teaser which created a lot of tremors in the market as soon as TVS uploaded it on their official Facebook page. Everyone hoped that the new bike would be the ‘awaited since long’ bigger Apache. Later on it turned out that it was a cosmetically lifted variant of their existing range though.
However, things this time are different and it seems we can finally trust these words since they are coming from the company itself. TVS promises new and bigger machines in the times to come to take head-on with the company which displaced them from the third spot – Honda India.
It is for sure that the recent upturn of events in the Indian motorcycle market has hurt TVS the most. Their market share has dropped by one percentage point in this fiscal so far to 14%. And needless to say that this share has gone to HMSI (Honda Motorcycle & Scooters India) which has a control of 15% now. Hero leads the pack with 45% share followed by Bajaj’s 19%.
Bajaj has already launched two products (Pulsar 200NS and Discover 125ST) which have been received fantastically well in the market. TVS has just revamped their Apache line up which has not really gone in favor of the company. TVS definitely needs a star mass selling product in the 100 or 125cc segment to increase sales and a premium product (greater than 200cc) to build its brand.
TVS has plans to invest Rs 300-400 crore in the new product development and revamping the existing lineup. The company is working on two new platforms and intends to launch as many as 6 new products by 2014-15. Now this might seem to be distant however, the good news is that TVS would launch 2 new motorcycles and a scooter in this fiscal year itself. We have already seen one bike caught testing a few days back which looks like a small capacity bike. It would be interesting to see the other bike and scooter which would be hitting our shores within 8-9 months from now.
Meanwhile, TVS is also working hard to make the Qube electric concept which we saw at this year’s Auto Expo into production.
Source: Economic Times
