The sales figures of August 2014 reveal that many bikes have been discontinued, announcement of the same might not happen officially. Meanwhile, the leadership position remains unaltered with Hero being number one by a huge margin.
It’s numbers time again. Sales figures of August 2014 are out and they reflect a lot on what’s happening. Last month’s numbers also help us understand a few crucial things. Just like July, the order remains the same, Hero continues to lead, Honda tries to play catch up, TVS remains stable at three while Bajaj is sitting at fourth position and showing no signs of doing much to improve sales. The rest of the manufacturers haven’t shown much difference in sales either, there are some ups and downs but not drastic.
Hero MotoCorp – Posting a 3.5% MoM increase in sales, the world’s largest 2-wheeler company sold close to 2.24 lakh Splendors last month. Rest of the bikes continues to perform just like before but the Xtreme has seen a drastic decline in sales by a whooping 66.5%. Even Pleasure sales have dropped and we blame the TVS Scooty Zest for that. The Karizma has seen an increase in popularity which only confirms the fact that the new Karizmas have been accepted well by the folks in rural markets. Ironically, Hero dispatched 20 units of the Impulse last month, although production has stopped, maybe Hero found 20 units lying in some back alley of one of their plants and decided to get rid of them.
Honda – After making a lot of hue and cry that the Activa outsold the Splendor in July (which did not happen as Honda conveniently did not consider Super Splendor sales), the Japanese automaker’s scooter is far from touching the “fill it, shut it, forget it” machine. Sales of the Dream series continue to rise while the Twister has been given the axe, finally. With just 52 units of the Stunner being dispatched, we all know that bike too is on its way out. Unicorn sales fell by 34.6%, Discover 150 effect? Meanwhile Honda dispatched a whooping 1256 units of the CBR150R, clear signs that all remaining inventory is now sent to dealers to clear stock. Honda has ceased production of both the CBRs and that’s evident as the bigger 250R saw only 11 dispatches.
TVS – After overtaking Bajaj Auto, TVS is maintaining a comfortable lead thanks to its Mopeds. The Hosur based company is also doing good numbers in the scooter segment and all of its scooters were refreshed earlier this year. Star range of motorcycles bring in the numbrs while the Apache continues its mediocre performance.
Bajaj Auto – Continuing its poor show in the domestic 2-wheeler space, Bajaj Auto hasn’t seen a drastic increase in sales of the Discover 150 as overall sales of the Discover failed to touch 50,000 units last month, let alone touch 1 lakh units which Bajaj was targeting. Being very new to the market, we will still give the Discover a couple of more months to gauge the response to the 150cc bikes. Hopefully the Discover 150 sells well and there are two reasons we want it to. One being it’s a good value for money commuter bike and the other reason is that we are tired of seeing new Discovers. If the Discover 150 doesn’t work, Bajaj will continue to launch more variants. Meanwhile, Avenger continues its decent run and has huge potential if Bajaj update it. KTM sales fell which was obvious as the RCs were coming which made many hold on before going for the Duke.
Yamaha – This Japanese company is performing quite well and is consistent too. With no Fazer dispatches last month (as new model was on its way), Yamaha still managed to report an increase in sales. The new FZ has been received well but is yet to face the Gixxer effect. R15’s popularity continues to be un-ending while Yamaha’s scooters managed a minor improvement in sales last month.
Suzuki – Hayabusa maker’s forefront products saw a massive decline in sales, the Access and Let’s saw a drop in numbers. The Let’s demand falling wasn’t something we expected as it’s a new product and quite a good one at that. Suzuki seems to have dispacted all GS150Rs it had in its factory, one can see a 15 fold increase in numbers for its 150cc bike. The Gixxer is where Suzuki wants to concentrate so it’s natural to get rid of all the GS150Rs right away.
Others – Meanwhile, Mahindra, Royal Enfield and Piaggio form the bottom pile of the 2-wheeler space in sales, while the Bullet and Vespa makers play in a niche field, Mahindra’s one man army in the motorcycle space isn’t helping them boost numbers. With the Zesto arriving soon, Mahindra can expect better days while the Mojo’s launch has been stretched so long that nobody cares about it anymore. Piaggio will continue its small numbers even though they plan to launch a special edition model. Royal Enfield has no plans to launch anything in the near future, they are just busy trying to deliver bikes on time, a nice situation to be in for any manufacturing company.
