Just a couple of days ago we carried a post about the Suzuki Inazuma’s price, expecting it to be around Rs. 2 lakhs, in spite of a dealer quoting Rs. 3.66 lakhs on facebook. That price seems to be right as our friends at IndianAutosBlog have managed to get inside information on the product along with snapping pictures of the demo bikes at a dealership. Yes, the Suzuki Inazuma is going to be priced at a whooping Rs. 3.44 lakhs (on-road, Delhi). The ex-showroom price of the Suzuki Inazuma in Delhi is Rs. 3.14 lakhs. The price of this motorcycle in the USA is Rs. 2.47 lakhs ($3999), in line with its competitors. We are in total disbelief.
A quick call to multiple Suzuki dealerships confirmed the super optimistic pricing by the Japanese company. Clearly Suzuki hasn’t done a competition check because a semi-faired motorcycle at such a price simply won’t work in India. The best bike in this category is undoubtedly the Kawasaki Ninja 300, which in spite of being such a well engineered product fails to find buyers in our price sensitive and value centric country. Dealers tell us that Suzuki plans to allot only 2 bikes per dealer in a month, which clearly shows volume isn’t the agenda here. Only one variant is being offered.
So what is the reason for launching the Suzuki Inazuma in India? At this price, Suzuki is better off not launching this product because they are simply not going to do even decent numbers to make a profit. The Inazuma is locally assembled via the CKD route and local manufacturing could have helped the company’s cause. Maybe brand building is the idea but when you have a freaking Hayabusa in your portfolio, you don’t need any Inazuma to boost brand image. Still if you are convinced, you can book a Suzuki Inazuma right away for a booking amount of Rs. 25,000/-. Deliveries will start immediately from the day of launch, which is set for 27th January 2014.
The Suzuki Inazuma was expected to be the cheapest twin-cylinder bike in India but that honours now continue to rest with the Hyosung GT250R. The bike doesn’t get ABS but features front and rear disc brakes. Powering the Suzuki Inazuma is a 248cc, parallel-twin engine which belts out 26 BHP of power and 24.4 Nm of torque, coupled to a 6-speed gearbox. The speedometer is an LCD unit and the alloys are 3-spoke units. The Inazuma uses a semi double-cradle frame with telescopic front forks and 7-way adjustable rear monoshock. Also known as the GW250, the Inazuma was pegged to compete with the Honda CBR250R and KTM Duke 200 but at this price, it’s even more expensive than the talk of the town, the Duke 390. With this price, even Salman Khan can’t help Suzuki sell the Inazuma, although he will be present at the launch in Mumbai.
Source – IndianAutosBlog.com