Yamaha’s books remained closed in October with 0 units of the R3 sold in October this year with Kawasaki, Royal Enfield and Triumph being the only positive sellers.
While September was an extremely auspicious period for the premium motorcycle market witnessing promising growth for most manufacturers, October could not turn out to be equally potent on the sales front. Starting from the bottom, sales for the previous month were rather shocking in Yamaha’s stable with the R3 clocking zero units. Off to an extremely good start, it is unclear as to why not even one unit of the new quarter-litre moved out of showrooms. That said, possibility is that the allocated units for the Indian market were sold in the first two months itself, contrary to the company expectations.
Yamaha sold 396 units of the R3 cumulatively in August and September and the response has been overwhelming. It needs to be seen if the company will be importing more CKD kits to keep up with the demand. The other surprising automaker to witness drop in volumes was KTM that sold a cumulative 2956 units in October, down by 6 percent over September 2015. With less concentration on premium offerings, Honda too joined Yamaha and KTM at the bottom selling just 27 units. The CBR650F nevertheless, did consistently well clocking 21 units for the second consecutive month.
Things were sluggish at the Harley-Davidson camp this October with only the entry-level models keeping buyers entertained. After the initial hype, the 2016 Street 750 saw a marginal drop in numbers with 342 units moving out, compared to 361 units sold in September this year. The Iron 883 also saw a drop in volumes by 18 percent while sales for the Forty-Eight increased to 6 units from just one, courtesy of the new model. The Street Bob and Fat Boy again saw a drop in numbers while things were disappointing across the American auto giant’s premium range.
Talking about the positive sellers, Kawasaki saw a dramatic spike in volumes during October 2015 with sales growing by healthy 44 percent. The Ninja 300 turned out to be the biggest contributor in the automaker’s stable, followed by the Z800 and ZX-10R consistently clocking 37 units. Triumph too gained an 8 percent hike in numbers as the Tiger 800 XR and XRx were the automaker’s popular models in October with 31 units sold. The Bonneville T100 was next with 17 units sold while the Street Triple clocked 14 units, up from 11 units in September this year.
Consistent as ever, sales for Royal Enfield saw a marginal hike banking upon its popular cruisers. The Classic 350 was the best selling bike for the month and consistently clocked 24,740 units while the Bullet Electra 350 was the next best seller garnering 5610 units. The other models saw a marginal decline in numbers. Lastly, Suzuki consecutively sold 16 units this October with both the GSX-S1000 and GSX-R1000 clocking 2 units each. The Intruder was also a positive seller with 3 units pushed out while the legendary Hayabusa saw a marginal drop in numbers with 9 units clocked.
