Middleweight bikes sold by Royal Enfield are better than ones sold by German and Japanese firms, Managing Director of Eicher Motors, Siddhartha Lal, has stated recently.
Referring to Royal Enfield’s 650 twins and the Meteor 350, Lal said, they are better in some ways, which is why “we are outselling the Japanese and German bikemakers in several international markets.”
Lal asserted that Enfield follows “extremely rigorous processes” and does not take “any shortcuts in product development and testing.”. He also said, Royal Enfield bikes “are world-class.”
The popular bike brand remains the leader of the middleweight segment, having sold 5.73 lakh motorcycles in FY21, of which 5.49 lakh units were from its 350cc range.
Despite its sole adventure model the Himalayan and its premium 650 twins bringing in only about 24,000 units during the period, Siddhartha Lal says investment into the 650 twins will continue.
The reason being, of the 11,523 2-wheelers that were retailed in the 500-800cc category in FY21 in India, Enfield’s 650 twins contributed 10,256 units. It was a similar case in FY20 as well, with the 650cc models making up 20,188 units of the total 22,910 units sold in the segment.
Having single-handedly fuelled the growth of the 500cc and above segment, the company is working on new products in both 350cc and 650cc segments. According to Eicher Motors’ boss, Royal Enfield is looking at what more it can do with every platform to meet the requirements of its customers.
New motorcycles that the brand is known to be developing using its 650cc platform at the moment include a couple of cruiser models, while it recently trademarked the title “Scram” for a proposed scrambler motorcycle as well.
Source – ETAuto.com