The Chennai based indigenous motorcycle maker, TVS Motors today revealed in a statement that the company is having on-going talks with BMW Motorcycles and this partnership is likely to see the light of the day before the end of the ongoing fiscal year. If we take a look at the current dominant players in the Indian market, either they are international bigwigs or they have a collaboration with some international biggie. Hero MotoCorp, which earlier had its tie-up with Honda Motorcycles, Japan has now exited the JV and has technical collaborations with Eric Buell Racing and AVL Austria for motorcycle and motorcycle engine development.
Bajaj Auto on the other hand has a stake in KTM via which its gets access to KTM’s technical expertise. TVS Motors, on the contrary has been a long lone player in the market after it exited its JV with Suzuki Motorcycles. And without an aggressive product portfolio, it is constantly losing market share. The tie-up with BMW will definitely pump in some fresh action into the brand. TVS Motor Co President (Marketing) HS Goindi told reporters, “Talks are on (with BMW) and we expect something to materialize before end of the ongoing fiscal.” He however, declined to comment on the nature and details of the partnership for which the company is in talks with the German firm.
Currently, BMW Motorrad sells high-end performance bikes since 2010 in India. And TVS, on the other hand currently sells a range of motorcycles, starting from entry level TVS Sport in the 100 cc segment to the 180 cc model TVS Apache. Recently, it launched the 125cc bike, Phoenix in India. It is priced at Rs 49,990 for drum brake version and Rs 52,000 (ex-showroom Delhi) for the disc brake variant. Commenting on the company’s expectations from the newly launched Phoenix, Goindi said: “The overall executive motorcycle segment is about 4 lakh units a month in India now and we want to have a share of about 5-7 percent.” He also added that overall, the company is aiming to sell around 20,000 units of Phoenix 125.
