For the kind of work Royal Enfield is doing in product technology and development, it doesn’t need a partnership.
Neither for technology nor for manufacturing, Royal Enfield doesn’t need a partnership – that’s what Royal Enfield boss Siddhartha Lal had to say on the backdrop of Bajaj and Triumph announcing their global partnership. The kind of work Royal Enfield is doing in product technology and development over the past 2-3 years, it does not see any need for a partnership, the CEO of the world’s oldest motorcycle brand in series production said in a recent interview.
The company has set up two tech centres for product development, one each in the UK and India. Royal Enfield currently sells motorcycles ranging from 350cc-535cc in India and dominates the mid-size motorcycle market (250cc-750cc) in the sub-continent. Interestingly, the Bajaj Triumph partnership will also be making motorcycles that will contend in the same segment where Royal Enfield currently dominates.
Last year Bajaj launched the Dominar 400 to take on the Royal Enfield Classic 350, however, that rivalry is yet to grow and become intense, as the Classic 350 easily sells over 25,000-30,000 units a month whereas the Dominar sells just around 1000 units.
With the partnership with Triumph, Bajaj intends to grab a significant market share from Royal Enfield. It remains to be seen, what kind of motorcycles will emerge from this partnership and how will they fare against the segment heavy-weight Royal Enfield. For that, we will have to wait for at least 2-3 years.
Meanwhile, Royal Enfield reported its highest ever quarterly sales volumes of 1,83,731 motorcycles in the April-June quarter thereby growing at 25 percent over the same quarter last year. While expanding its retail outlets across the country, the Bullet maker is gearing up to launch a twin-cylinder motorcycle to take on the Harley-Davidson Street 750.
Royal Enfield Partnership
– For product technology and development, Royal Enfield needs no partners
– The motorcycles from the Bajaj-Triumph partnership will take at least 2-3 years
– Royal Enfield has approximately 700 stores in India as of June
Source – Business-Standard.com
