[GTO]

Originally Posted by ethanhunt123

Total Wipeout for HD 750 twins

Your post made me look at the sales of expensive bikes and it's quite telling. Overall, the 2-wheeler market is 6 - 7 times bigger than the 4-wheeler market. However, when it comes to luxury cars & bikes, that's surely not the case. In all, India buys about 50,000 luxury cars every year. But if you look at the figures of expensive / luxury bikes (say, costing 10 lakh or more), it's . The market is simply not there.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by GTO

Your post made me look at the sales of expensive bikes and it's quite telling. Overall, the 2-wheeler market is 6 - 7 times bigger than the 4-wheeler market. However, when it comes to luxury cars & bikes, that's surely not the case. In all, India buys about 50,000 luxury cars every year. But if you look at the figures of expensive / luxury bikes (say, costing 10 lakh or more), it's . The market is simply not there.

Reason IMHO - There are no luxury bikes.

The market is just about 10k bikes a year, 7.5k from known brands and 2.5k I'm attributing to brands like Ducati, BMW Motorrad, Benelli, MV Augusta etc that don't really reveal their figures. Below is the yearly sales trend from the 2018 Annual Report Card thread for Superbikes & Imports.

That said - Luxury cars & Bikes aren't the same equation - because cars are also bought by a majority of people just for luxury transport, being chauffeur driven etc. An ideal situation would have been to compare only the driver's cars (vRS, BMW M cars, Audi RS cars, Porsche range without their SUVs, Mercedes AMG cars etc) with Superbikes - and I believe the numbers will tell a totally different story. Bikes are purely bought for leisure, and isn't even as practical as the above cars - some of which can still carry four people in comfort to office as well.

Infact, forget luxury - even in the lower price bracket that these bike sell - such cars never sell in India. Compare the sales figures of Punto Abarth, JTP Twins, Figo S, Polo GTI etc to the above numbers - and I think the superbike numbers are 10 times more than these.

[timuseravan]

Originally Posted by GTO

Your post made me look at the sales of expensive bikes and it's quite telling. Overall, the 2-wheeler market is 6 - 7 times bigger than the 4-wheeler market. However, when it comes to luxury cars & bikes, that's surely not the case. In all, India buys about 50,000 luxury cars every year. But if you look at the figures of expensive / luxury bikes (say, costing 10 lakh or more), it's . The market is simply not there.

One big factor is the impracticality of expensive bikes for our conditions. Most of expensive bike makers are too focused on the leisure riding aspect than on everyday use.

A luxury car can be and is used as a normal everyday driving car by a lot of people. Now compare that with using a Harley for everyday commute or shopping trips. Yes there are some people who do it but for the vast majority of the people it is simply too impractical.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

Or is there some reason for not featuring electrics here?

Sales numbers are not available, Hemanth. Would have made for an interesting comparison over the years though!

Originally Posted by ethanhunt123

Total Wipeout for HD 750 twins - feeling the heat from RE ? The bosses at HD must be wondering what to do since they were the bread and butter products for Harley in India

Last month I thought it was just due to the year ending, but in Jan too? Looks like Harley is in trouble - the next couple of months will be interesting to watch.

[neil.jericho]

Thank you for compiling these figures once again for us CD! However every month I find that the more I dig, the more I find things that dont match my limited understanding of the Indian market. Or the manufacturer - dealer model is highly skewed in favour of the manufacturers with the dealers being forced to sit on a huge pile of inventory.

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

About my earlier point on the Kawasaki H2, I found this update on social media regarding the 1st H2 SX in India being delivered on January 6, 2019. Lets see if this is clubbed in with the H2 numbers in next month's thread.

Last month I posted that one H2 SX was delivered in Bombay but there was no corresponding dispatch from Kawasaki in the month prior to that. Anyways this month, I see a social media update of a Kawasaki Ninja H2 SX SE being delivered in Trivandrum. The last shown dispatch of a H2 is in September 2018. I wonder if this was a dealer inventory bike (that costs Rs 26.8 lakhs ex showroom!) or a fresh dispatch (in which case the Kawasaki numbers are incorrect).

Originally Posted by ethanhunt123

Total Wipeout for HD 750 twins - feeling the heat from RE ? The bosses at HD must be wondering what to do since they were the bread and butter products for Harley in India

Quite likely a one punch knockout by RE who themselves are slow in delivering the 650 twins. HD will likely face a tough few quarters in India until their new bikes make their way into India.

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

The market is just about 10k bikes a year, 7.5k from known brands and 2.5k I'm attributing to brands like Ducati, BMW Motorrad, Benelli, MV Augusta etc that don't really reveal their figures.

BMW did 2,187 units in 2018. Source - https://www.thehindubusinessline.com...le25901282.ece

Ducati numbers are tough to find but this gives some indication - 1000 units in 2016. Today they have more models on sale but much tougher competition so I would roughly say they are doing 600 units a year. Source -https://www.livemint.com/Companies/5zTQ8dL0zPBrWeZ9WjsFbN/Ducati-sees-India-among-top-five-markets-MD-Sergi-Canovas.html

MV Augusta is a virtual non entity in India and I doubt they sold over 50 bikes a year. Interesting article with its new owner - https://www.cyclenews.com/2019/02/ar...rov-interview/

With their recent troubles, I would guess Benelli is doing 300 - 400 units a year currently but they have some new launches lined up so they could go up to say a 1000 against their stated target of 1500 to 2000 units. Source - https://www.financialexpress.com/aut...k-502/1492015/

[jpcoolguy]

Thanks Crazy Driver, for the two wheeler sales and analysis for the month of Jan 2019.

Few observations from my side -

1. The first month of the year didn't look promising for the two wheeler industry overall, registering de-growth Y-o-Y. Also, the total number of units sold are lesser than all but one month (Dec '18), last year.

2. Both Hero and Honda's lower sales volume have contributed to the de-growth of overall two wheeler sales. Yamaha has lost out to Suzuki for the 2nd consecutive month, and the latter seems to have consolidated in the 6th position behind RE.

3. The RE 650 twins have started off well and have already crossed the 1K mark. This is the first time a bike costing more than 3L have managed to sell more 1000 units per month. Conversely, the sales of 500 cc class from RE has fallen to new lows this month - Classic 500 has hit sub-1000 units after a long time (Mar '17), in fact the sales have been on the downward trend ever since the RE twins have launched. It does make sense to go for the 650 twins rather shelling out more than 2L on the 500's.

4. On the other hand, the Jawa twins turning out to be a damp squib, which have also possibly helped RE Classic 350 to rebound back to its original levels of more than 45K after a lull of 2 previous months.

5. ZX-6R moved 25 units in its first month; Vulcan S, Versys 650 and Versys 300 have opened their account after a long duration. However, Suzuki V-Strom seems to have stolen the thunder from Versys 650. Harley moved no Street 750 and Street Rod - two of their best selling bikes.

6. Pulsar 150 has become the best selling Bajaj bike and seems to have hit a new high this month, the previous being 64,900 units in Sep '18. Even the 180/200/220 versions have also been back to their original levels.

7. Interestingly, the Ninja 300 have managed to outsell the cult RE Thunderbird and Bullet 500's for the 2nd consecutive month and have outsold the much cheaper CBR 250R in the last 2 months and almost matched it this month.

8. The RE 650 twins have not only impacted the bikes from its own stable, the impact can be seen all across the board. Duke 390 has struggling to sell 250 units per month and even the smaller Duke 250 is not spared. Harley Street 750 and Street Rod have already wiped out in the past 2 months. The much cheaper FZ 25 is down to triple digits for the past 2 months and Dominar is dead, even before the facelift is launched. Also, the cheaper Apache 310 RR and CBR 250R are impacted. If this onslaught by 650 twins is going to continue, other manufacturers can kiss good bye to the much vaunted 250-500 cc class.

9. So, after only a month, Duke 125 has been outsold by its bigger 200 sibling. Xtreme 200R seems to be doing good, when compared to Hero's past history with 150-220 cc class, so it's high time Hero bid good bye to the Xtreme 150 and Achiever, no point in dragging them.

10. Suzuki Access has been on a steady upward trend and now has managed to break te 50K levels for the first time, hitting a new monthly high in sales volume. Also, in the process, has become second best selling scooter behind Activa, pushing out the Jupiter. However, this seems more like the fall in Jupiter's sales volume has lead to Access' 2nd place. On the contrary, Suzuki must be very much worried with Gixxer's fall in sales volume and Intruder's big zero this month.

11. R15 is doing good numbers for its price bracket, when viewed in relation with KTM Duke 125. Even, the Honda's Hornet and X-Blade have not been able to get the volumes R15 is doing.

12. Glamour seems to have lost its glamour little bit, however the dismal sales of Passion, in relative terms, might ring a bell to Hero.

13. Ntorq is steady, however the new Hero Destini have broken the 20K levels and on the upward trend since launch.

[neil.jericho]

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

Thank you for compiling these figures once again for us CD! However every month I find that the more I dig, the more I find things that dont match my limited understanding of the Indian market. Or the manufacturer - dealer model is highly skewed in favour of the manufacturers with the dealers being forced to sit on a huge pile of inventory.



Last month I posted that one H2 SX was delivered in Bombay but there was no corresponding dispatch from Kawasaki in the month prior to that. Anyways this month, I see a social media update of a Kawasaki Ninja H2 SX SE being delivered in Trivandrum. The last shown dispatch of a H2 is in September 2018. I wonder if this was a dealer inventory bike (that costs Rs 26.8 lakhs ex showroom!) or a fresh dispatch (in which case the Kawasaki numbers are incorrect).

This month's Fast Bikes magazine has an update by respected journalist Sirish Chandran who bought himself a new Kawasaki ZX14R. Well he does mention that he bought himself a new missile and two weeks after getting it road registered he took it to the track. I assume road registered doesn't mean transfer of ownership and is instead registration of a new bike. Now correlate that to the ZX14R numbers on the thread and we see zero dispatches in the last 13 months. I am getting a sense that the Kawasaki figures are not accurate as the sales of the 650s also dont seem to correlate against the reported dispatches in 2018. The only way to explain the numbers is if Sirish's ZX14R is a 2017 bike and Sirish bagged himself a steal deal but I doubt the Mumbai dealer sat on a ZX14R in their warehouse for over a year.


With all this looking at dispatch data, Im beginning to see conspiracy theories everywhere !

[neil.jericho]

Sales of 125cc segment bikes fell to 1.70 million units, a year-on-year slide of 8 percent during April-January period this fiscal. In comparison, sales of bikes with engines less than 110cc grew 17 percent during this fiscal to 7.14 million.

This is an interesting article that talks about the impact of the petrol hike, 5 year insurance and greater perceived value of entry level commuters.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/te...h-3605061.html

[sukiwa]

Royal Enfield >350cc models: 3 months since dispatches for 650cc twins were started, so thought of checking early trend if RE has managed to grow this segment. I was surprised to see that it hasn't changed, not grown. Overall volumes are going downhill since peak in March 2018. Fall in Classic 500 numbers is drastic and upward path of 650 twins isn't enough.
I know that this is too early and issues like production constraints, strikes, QC issues aren't helping RE either. It would be interesting to check this after another quarter or so.

[VindyWheels]

Thank you for the data and wonderfully presented analysis.

It is interesting to note that not a single Bajaj brand is there in top-5. Hero Motocorp clocked sales of over 33,000 Cr in the last 4 quarters while Bajaj had sales figure less than 30,000 Cr. But the bottom line of Bajaj is 30% higher than Hero owing to higher profit margins. This is despite the aggressive pricing strategy by Bajaj leading to 30% growth in volumes in FY19 compared to 14% growth for the industry. Consequently, the market share in motorcycles for Bajaj has risen by a whopping 5% in just a year. 5% market share is something Yamaha could not get in over a decade!

I think Bajaj is getting its mojo back. Let's see how Hero responds.

Cheers

Vindy