What has Bajaj Auto done in the past few years? It has brought in KTM and Kawasaki in a market where they had absolutely no presence. Now its payback time and Bajaj Auto is looking to tap into KTM and Kawasaki’s vast expertise overseas to double sales volumes and achieve 10 million sales a year by 2016. This in turn will also help Bajaj Auto in doubling its turnover and achieve 50% of its sales through exports. The company’s focus continues to remain on motorcycles, where it is investing high amount in R&D, rather than on production. Bajaj claims their fixed costs are less than 10% of sales.
“We are working on global motorcycles alliance with KTM and Kawasaki Heavy Industries to partner them in markets where we are not present like Brazil, Vietnam and Malaysia. It is not easy to do this, ourselves. Discussions are underway and we hope to conclude this soon,” Mr. Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director, Bajaj Auto, said.
This partnership with KTM and Kawasaki in overseas markets could play a vital role for Bajaj Auto to become a global player. The Pulsar 200 NS could do very well in other Asian markets. KTM and Kawasaki could handle the imports of Bajaj bikes along with the distribution. Bajaj Auto has focused all its attention on the Discover and Pulsar lately. The company does not plan to get into the scooter market again and feels the reason for the lower profitability of its competitors is that they make too many scooters. Bajaj has been trying to move 100cc motorcycle buyers to 125cc segment, by offering more frugal bikes.
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